Page 16 of The Viking’s Captive

CHAPTER THREE

You could say he was Alrek the Klutz…

“I will never become a fierce Viking warrior,” Alrek complained dolefully. Tears pooled in his green eyes which he quickly wiped away on the sleeve of his tunic.

Adam was still tied to the mast pole, but he’d sunk down to the deck. The boy, whose hair was bleached almost white by the sun, had plopped down beside Adam and was now munching on a piece of gammelost wrapped within a slice of manchet bread. Every time he took a bite, he pinched his nose to avoid smelling what he was eating.

“Why do you eat the overripe cheese if it tastes so bad?” Adam had asked him more than once.

Alrek had replied, “‘Cause I need to eat so I kin grow big and strong.”

Both sets of legs were extended outward. Alrek’s were half as long as Adam’s … and so skinny, it was pitiful. Even more pitiful were the bleeding blisters that marred the palms of his hands—testament to his dogged determination to become a sailor and a fighting man.

Alrek had a habit of hanging around Adam when he wasn’t busy elsewhere. He liked to spout off endlessly about all his failings. In truth, he liked to spout off on any subject. It didn’t matter if Adam contributed to the conversation at all; Alrek just wanted someone on whom he could unload his problems.

Adam’s eyes kept coming back to the open blisters on the boy’s hands. Finally he advised, “You should dip your hands in salt water every chance you get. It will burn like Hades, but the salt helps to keep the wounds from festering, and the blisters will heal faster.”

Alrek nodded. “Eyvind, my rowing partner, says horse piss will serve as well.”

“Eyvind is teasing you.”

“Really? Ah, well, good thing I could not get Rafn’s stallion to stand still whilst I held a bucket under him. That’s how I got this knock on my knees.” He motioned with his bread toward a knobby knee that was bluish-black and turning yellow on the edge. “Kicked me good, the bloody horse did. Tyra, our chieftain, said it would have served me good fer being such a lackwit. She is a fine leader … I will give her that … but, whew, she can be hard fer a woman. What do you think of her?”

Adam didn’t know what to think. The way Alrek’s mind moved from one subject to another, he could scarce keep up.

“Huh? Huh? What do you think of her?”

“I try not to think of her,” Adam said, choosing his words carefully.

“Some say she is still a verge-on, which is no doubt true, her being so big and tall and fiercesome. Puts the men off, you know.”

“Alrek, do you even know what a virgin is?”

“ ‘Course I do,” he said with affront. “‘Tis a woman what has had no man’s longship up her fjord, so to speak.”

“Well, that is one way of describing it.” Adam should have warned the boy of the inadvisability of speaking so intimately of one’s superiors, but all he could do was grin.

“And a man is a verge-on when his longship has never set sail, so to speak.”

Longship? That certainly is a new name for a man’s best friend.Adam started to cough and couldn’t stop.

“I’m a verge-on,” Alrek admitted in an undertone, as if disclosing some big secret.

Adam coughed some more, then choked out, “Of course you are. Ten years old! I would hope so.”

“How old were you when yer longship first went … uhm, a-Viking?”

If this little whelp thought Adam was going to discuss his sex life, he could think again. ‘Twas long past time to change the subject. “Why is it so important that you become a Viking warrior?” The boy was going to kill himself trying, if what Adam had observed the past two days was any indication.

“A fierce Viking warrior,” Alrek corrected him. “‘Cause it be a noble profession. ‘Cause ‘tis the only way fer a homeless boy like me to gain lands and riches. ‘Cause I would rather drink goat piss than stay behind at Stoneheim with King Thorvald’s daughters. Tyra is not so bad, but wait till you meet her four sisters! Many a man in King Thorvald’s court has gone a-Viking just to escape their doings.” He rolled his eyes dramatically.

“You’re too little to go a-Viking. You should be home playing youthling games.”

“I’m ten years old. I am not little,” he asserted, puffing out his little chest. “Besides, I have no home. This ship is me home. When I am back at Stoneheim, I sleep on the floor of the great hall.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Me father left when I was five. Some say he is a fighting man in the Rus lands; some say he is dead.” He shrugged with indifference. “Me mother died last year of the childbed fever. She were a kitchen helper. Two sisters and a brother I have back at Stoneheim. I am the oldest, so I mus’ support them with the silver coin King Thorvald pays me each year.”