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Oh, good gods! You’d think they were youthlings, not grown men.
“I for one plan to plow a few fields once we land, and I don’t mean grass. Ha, ha, ha!”
We have been too long asea if that crudity passes for humor.
“My wife has a garden. Betimes she likes me to till it for her ... with me hoe. Ha, ha, ha!”
Yea, way too long.
“You are so full of shit, but then manure is good for the soil. Ha, ha, ha!”
Do they think I will be shocked by their coarseness? If they only knew, I have heard far worse. Drifa had been raised in a keep of fighting men, ofttimes two hundred warriors in residence at one time. It was not the first time she had heard that word.
“When my lily blooms, it wants naught but a wet furrow to rest in. Ha, ha, ha!”
I have seen your lily, Otto, and it is naught to brag about.
“Someone best tell the princess to get up off her flower bed and come see what is on the horizon.”
It did not matter that the seamen made mock of her with their floral jests. Better that than toss her overboard as had been threatened more than once when they’d been hit with one misery after another and the food supply had dwindled down to the hated lutefisk.
In their defense—not that they needed defending—although Njord, the god of the seas, had been kind to them with good weather, it had been a long, tiresome journey from the Norselands to Constantinople, or the city the Vikings called Miklagard, Great City. They had come by way of the Dneipr, where they’d had to weather sea storms, cataracts, sandbanks, and treacherous shoal waters. Not all the waterways were connected and portage had been necessary on occasion, requiring the seamen to carry the longships overland on their shoulders.
Also, in their defense, this was a trip that had been forced on them. They resented Drifa mightily.
She must have dozed off then because next she was aware there was a leather-clad toe nudging her hip. Glancing up sleepily, she saw Wulfgar of Wessex, commander of the small fleet, including her own Wind Maiden; he was one of the few Saxons aboard. “We are almost there, Princess Drifa,” he announced in his usual dour way.
“Really? Truly?”
“Really. Truly.” His voice reeked with sarcasm as he turned abruptly and walked away.
The grump!
Rising, she straightened her hair that lay in one long braid down her back and fluffed out her gown. And then she gasped at what she saw.
The sun was about to set as the four longship prow heads of fierce dragon, wolf, raven, and bear plowed through the rolling waves approaching Constantinople. The Golden City certainly earned its name this day as its onion domes and fanciful turrets, marbled facades and mosaic tiles sparkled like vibrant jewels.
And the gardens! Ah! Even from this distance, she could see that the vibrant colors of the terraced gardens added to the aura of precious stones.
For Drifa, who loved flowers, this journey was a long-held dream come to fruition. In fact, she’d been obsessed with plants from an early age. And where better to study them than the Imperial Gardens of Miklagard.
The specially made chest she carried with her everywhere contained sharpened quills, brushes made of silky sable and camel hair, and hundreds of parchment sheets displaying drawings of plants, listing their origins and characteristics. An expensive pastime, for a certainty, considering the rarity of parchment, except for that allotted the monk scribe illuminators, but then she had an immense dowry just sitting there these twenty and nine years. Leastways, that was how she justified her passion to her father and four married sisters.
Not that she hadn’t been tempted to follow the path of most normal women. There had been that one man, of course. Sidroc of Vikstead. But, nay, she had forgotten about him long ago, or she tried to, which was nigh impossible with his daughter Runa prancing about Stoneheim like a young lamb. Drifa had to smile just thinking about the little imp and how she had ingrained herself in the hearts of all of them. Her only regret about this journey was how much she would miss the little dearling.
By some strange quirk of fate, the Norns of Fate no doubt, Drifa had gotten herself involved with the abduction of Sidroc’s daughter. With good intentions, she’d brought the baby back to Stoneheim where Sidroc should have still been lying unconscious from her blow to his fool head, but, lo and behold, the dunderhead had gone, his whereabouts still unknown. He was dead for all she knew.
She had mixed feelings about that. She wanted Sidroc to be found, still living. Of course she did, though the prospects of that were dim after five years. But a true mother could not love Runa more. In fact, the child called Drifa Mother, despite Drifa’s initial corrections. Above all else, Drifa feared that Sidroc, if he was alive, might take Runa away. Why would he not?
No one, other than her sisters, knew of the child’s origins. Most folks just assumed Runa was an orphan child Drifa had adopted. Most of all, Drifa worried that Jarl Ormsson might discover the whereabouts of the child and make her a slave, just for spite.
She called herself back to the present with a shake of her head to clear it of unwelcome what-might-have-beens.
Unlike her, many of the sailors, mostly Vikings, had traveled to the wondrous capital of the Byzantine empire afore, some having served in the emperor’s elite troop of Norsemen, the Varangian Guard. Still, this sight on arrival must surely amaze even their hardened souls. It would be a work of art if it could ever be conveyed to canvas.
She went over to the rail next to Wulf. “Sorry I am if I am responsible for your ill-temper.”
“ ’Tis not you. Well, not you entirely,” he added with an unapologetic lack of grace. “I have been listening to the complaints and inane jests of not just two hundred seamen but my fellow hersirs since we left the Norselands three sennights ago.” He motioned with his head toward the two well-dressed men on his other side. Hersirs were commanders of troops in their own right.
