Page 113 of The Bewitched Viking

Too late! Trapped!

“Eirik,” he groaned aloud, seeing Tykir’s brother coming forth. Then he groaned mentally as he noted the rest of Lord Eirik’s party. “Lady Eadyth, Selik, Rain…’tis good to see you again. And all your children.” By the gods, these two couples breed like rabbits. They must copulate enough to populate the entire countryside. ’Tis best that Tykir has never wed if his brother and sister and their spouses set such an example. That was what he thought, but what he said with a sweet smile of admiration was, “What nice families you have!”

“Who is that you are watching over there?” Eirik pointed so that Eadyth would look, too. “Oh, I see, ’tis Lady Alinor. Where is Tykir? I daresay he would not let the witch escape, so he must be about somewhere.”

“He is not here, as far as I know,” Rurik disclosed. “Last I heard he was on his way to the Baltic.”

Alinor glanced up, and Rurik groaned aloud again. He was trapped, good and proper, now.

Everyone was introduced all around, including Toste.

Eadyth embraced Alinor in the way womenfolk often did, as if they were longtime friends. ’Twas their lesser brains that caused them to act so, in Rurik’s opinion. Rain embraced her, too, stating, “You are the one that Eadyth has told me about…the one she predicted would capture Tykir’s hard heart.”

Alinor burst into tears then and was blubbering noisily about a number of nonsensical things, like braids and feathers and lusty trolls and gammelost and cravings and piss and vomit. But only one of them caught his attention. With child.

Rurik threw his hands in the air. Well, that does it! Now I will never get away. The witch will be foisted on me. Everyone will think me uncaring if I just traipse off without caring for my best friend’s babe…and the mother of my best friend’s babe…and the sister and brother of my best friend…oh, hell, the whole bloody world. He sighed deeply, though no one was paying attention to him. Everyone was doting on Lady Alinor.

“I know Tykir probably does not want me, even with a babe,” Alinor explained on a sniffle, “but my only wish now is to find someone with a longship to take me back to Dragonstead.”

Everyone turned to him. Me? Why me? Oh, this is just a wonderful turn of events. I should have followed the maid with the swishing hips when I had a chance.

“Does your face hurt, Rurik?” Rain inquired, turning him from side to side with a firm grip on his chin.

“Nay. Why?”

“Because it’s blue.”

“Oh, have you not seen Rurik since he turned blue?” Eadyth spoke to Rain, but everyone in the bloody world was listening, including many a passerby. “He got it whilst swiving a witch.”

“Ead-yth!” Eirik remonstrated. “Where have you heard such language?”

“From you.” She wiggled her nose at him.

“Men!” Eadyth and Rain exclaimed, sharing a communal look of disgust. Alinor was too busy blubbering still.

“Rurik, do you have a longship here?” Eirik asked.

Uh-oh! Blindsided whilst woolgathering. “Yea, but I was going to Scotland for a time.”

Everyone stared at him as if he was the most selfish clod in the world. “I suppose I could postpone—”

Eirik had already assumed he would help them and was off on another subject. “The ships that Selik and I own are off being repaired. We have not much need of them, being landlocked as we are these days. Ouch,” he said, as Eadyth jabbed him with an elbow. “I wasn’t complaining, sweetling,” he told her with a reassuring pat on the arm; then he addressed Rurik again. “I suppose the one longship could take us all to Dragonstead?”

“All?” Rurik squeaked out, and his single word was echoed by everyone else in the group. Toste was nodding at everyone and making his escape. Lucky fellow!

“Yea, all. You did not think we would let you go alone, did you? And, of course, Eadyth and I will want to bring our five children. Some of them have never seen Dragonstead.”

“And Rain and I will bring at least four of our children and some of the orphans, though our oldest, Mary, and Adam’s sister, Adela, could stay with the greater number of the orphans. On the other hand, they want to come, too. Mayhap we could set them all to rowing. Ha, ha, ha. What do you think, heartling?” Selik asked Rain.

Rurik thought he might go mad and wondered if he might have been cursed by Alinor the Witch, after all.

There was no maybe about it, Rurik decided a short time later when Alinor looked up at him and wheedled, “Rur-ik?”

’Twas always best for a man to run like the wind when a woman asked something in a wheedling voice, especially when accompanied by the batting of eyelashes. Alinor should know that he was immune to her charms, or lack of charms. Tykir was the only one who thought her winsome. “What?” he snapped.

“Can I bring my sheep with us on your ship?”

“Nay!”