Page 25 of The Viking’s Captive

Adam gasped, as did Rashid on his other side. It was the usual reaction of people getting their first eyeful of the most outlandish Viking stead this side of the Other World … and its equally outlandish inhabitants.

Her men groaned on first seeing their homestead. That, too, was the usual response. Not that they weren’t happy to be home, reunited with wives and lady loves. ‘Twas just that Stoneheim did not resemble the usual stark Viking fortress … especially in the far North. Here, the winters were long and bitter, often with only one or two hours of daylight; survival took precedence over all else … or it should have.

Stoneheim’s keep was a wood fortress, like most others throughout Norway. But that was the only way in which it was similar.

Stoneheim was built back a considerable distance from the river frontage, with the harsh mountain as a backdrop. Many additions had been built on to the original royal longhouse, many of them set into flat ledges or carved out of the mountain itself, some of them two and three floors in height. And that did not include the outbuildings, or the village homes that lay in an ever widening half circle below the keep. The homestead was an immense hodgepodge of styles, its door lintels and eaves highly carved with Nordic symbols, even the frames of the windows … many of which contained skins oiled and rubbed until they were nigh as transparent as glass.

All this building was the work of Tyra’s sister Breanne, who had told her father over and over that if he was not going to find her a husband, then she was going to while away her time doing construction work. That was Breanne there atop the pigsty, looking beautiful as ever, even wearing men’s braies and tunic, her red curls tucked under a stable boy’s cap; she was helping her workers put new sod on the roof. Breanne was the daughter of an Irish thrall, Fiona, who had died of childbed fever just after wedding with Thorvald, her father, thus giving the newborn babe legitimacy. In fact, all of Tyra’s sisters were legitimate. Her father had a tendency to marry his women, even more than one at a time. All the mothers were dead now. Although Breanne was wearing men’s breeches, and did so whenever engaged in hard labor, she donned women’s apparel on all other occasions, unlike Tyra.

At least the pigsty had not been decorated during Tyra’s absence.

“I have never seen anything quite like this in all my life,” Adam remarked, his mouth agape.

“Well, yes, you have,” Rashid disagreed. “Remember all the colorful gardens in the harems of Baghdad?”

There the rascal went, bringing up harems again. Adam was referring to all the flowers and vividly hued bushes and autumn-leafed trees that adorned almost every available space outside the royal keep.

“Yea, you are correct,” Adam said, “but I have traveled throughout Norway and the other Northlands and never have I seen flowers growing in such profusion. You would think the cold would kill them off in the bud.”

“That is the work of my sister Drifa. Her mother Tahirah came from your lands, Rashid … a concubine of my father’s, and later his wife. She missed the warmer climes of her homeland so much that Father allowed her to plant a flower or two to halt her constant weeping. Little did he know that it would lead to this … this extravagance of floral madness. She even brought a tree indoors one time. Tahirah died five years past … some say of the yearning for her homeland that never left her … but her daughter Drifa has carried on in her stead.”

She pointed to a nearby terraced garden where a petite woman—petite by Norse standards—was kneeling amidst a profusion of autumn flowers, her dainty hands covered with dirt. Her raven hair and slightly slanted eyes were the only signs of her half-Arab heritage. Otherwise, she looked like a dark-haired Viking woman.

“It certainly is … pretty,” Adam commented, his mouth still agape.

“Pretty!” a nearby soldier said with a snort of disgust. “What kind of keep is this for fierce fighting men? We should have dirt-stomped exercise fields, but, nay, Drifa had to plant grass there and shrieks every time we trample it with our heavy boots. And the great hall! That is where the other sister, Vana, reigns. Thor’s balls, a man should be able to put his feet up in the hall, belch if the meal is particularly tasty, bring his dogs inside, spit in the rushes if he wants … not that there are rushes in this great hall. Nay, Vana says the dirty rushes breed maggots. We cannot even take a piss in the courtyard if the need comes on quicklike from an overabundance of mead. And we men must wipe our feet afore entering the great hall. Can you imagine that?” That last was spoken with such horror that you would have thought the men were required to cut off a limb … or a manpart … before dining.

Adam and Rashid looked to Tyra for an explanation. The soldier had stomped off with a curse to help Alrek toss ropes to the lad on the wharf so the longboat could be tied and pulled in close for landing. Twice so far, Alrek had missed his target.

“That would be my sister Vana he refers to … Vana the White she is called because of her white-blond hair. Her mother came to us, via my father’s bed furs, from Iceland. What can I say? She likes cleanliness.”

Rafn passed by and muttered under his breath, “Pfff! Like would be too weak a word. More like she worships at the altar of the god of cleanliness. The woman is a tyrant, I tell you, a tyrant. What she needs is a husband to beat her on occasion. Yea, she does.” You’d never know it by his words, but Rafn was in love with Vana. When asked by his comrades on many occasions how he would be able to abide living with such a zealot, Rafn always grinned and said, “I will give her more to occupy her time than brooms and lice.”

“Does the Norse religion have a god of cleanliness?” Rashid wanted to know.

She and Adam looked at each other and smiled … and wasn’t it amazing how her heart turned over at the small gesture of shared amusement? How pathetic she was! And how interesting that she had never noticed all these years how needful she was of a man’s attentions.

Or was it just Adam’s attentions that touched her so?

Now, that was an alarming prospect. Best to think of other things. What was it Rashid had asked? Oh, about a god of cleanliness. That was all Odin and Thor would need—a Vana-style goddess insisting that the great hall of Asgard be spotlessly clean! Asgard was reputed to be big enough to let 800 armed men stomp in with their dirty boots through 540 doors … doors with brass hinges that would need polishing.

“Alrek says there are two dozen spotlessly clean garderobes at Stoneheim,” Rashid commented, “and as many outside privies.”

“Alrek was jesting,” she said. “There are only ten … each.”

“Nice to know, though, that the bed furs will be clean and fragrant at Stoneheim,” Adam said. “I do so like to have clean bed furs when I am”—he paused long enough for her to look at him and blush—“sleeping.” He winked again, then leaned down to pick up his leather medical bags.

“I would pick you up and toss you overboard if I did not need your skills so much,” she snarled.

“Lucky me!” Adam murmured, a somber expression on his face now that the time to revive his medical talents was at hand.

“Skills? Skills?” Rashid hooted, obviously inferring that she’d meant a different kind of skill altogether.

“His medical skills,” Tyra emphasized. Then she did to Rashid what she would have liked to do to his master. She picked him up and tossed him over the side into the icy water.

She glanced around then to see everyone staring at her. The men were laughing. Her sisters were frowning with disgust.

And Adam—the bloody rogue—safe ashore … he winked at her.