Page 117 of The Bewitched Viking

Tykir came instantly alert. There was a dragonship tied to the bollards of his wharf. He drew his sword from its sheath. Adam and Bolthor, at his side, did likewise.

“Is that not Rurik’s vessel?” Bolthor questioned, squinting, as they came closer.

“But I thought he was headed for Scotland,” Adam said.

“And who are all those people about?” Tykir murmured. There were men and women up near the lake. And sheep, even a curly horned ram…nay, he must be mistaken about the curly horns. It was probably an illusion of the bright sunlight. But it was Beast who was chasing some mangy sheepdog that resembled…but, nay, that was impossible. And look there. Children. Lots of children. “Oh, good Lord! Is that Eirik and Eadyth?”

“And Selik and Rain. She must have had the baby,” Adam added, noting her flat stomach. “I should have made for the Arab lands when I had a chance. They will be cajoling me to come back to Northumbria, where I belong.”

Soon, his longship was anchored and tied to the wharf, and Tykir was surrounded by his family.

“What are you doing here?” Tykir asked Eirik.

“Well, that is some welcome, brother! Can we not come to visit Dragonstead when the inclination calls?”

“When I am not here?” Tykir inquired, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Have you been ill, Tykir?” Rain’s healing instincts leapt to the forefront. “You are much too thin, and there are bags under your eyes, and your pallor is—”

“I am fine.” He laughed whilst she prodded and probed him with a forefinger here and there. She even lifted his eyelids—to check his eyeballs, he presumed.

“For shame, Adam!” Rain said then, hugging him tightly as she spoke, then passing him on to Selik, his adopted father. Both Rain and Selik were tall as a tree. Adam would no doubt have bruises on his ribs when they were done with him. “What kind of healer are you becoming that you would let Tykir waste away so?” Rain continued to berate her “son.”

“Methinks Adam would be a better healer if he were back in Northumbria…” Selik started to say.

And everyone finished for him, “…where he belongs.”

Adam groaned.

They all moved up toward the keep, after Tykir instructed his seamen about the chores to finish up before heading for a cup of cool mead in their own homes or in the castle’s great hall.

“Who do all those children belong to?” Tykir grumbled, an arm looped around the shoulders of Eadyth and Rain, on either side of him. Everywhere he looked there were children, of all ages, from babes barely out of swaddling clothes toddling along in front of maidservants, to youthlings with first beards and young girls in first bloom.

“Me,” Eadyth, Rain, Eirik and Selik answered as one…then beamed with pride, as if begetting were some great feat.

“I thought the same thing you’re thinking about the number of whelps when I ran into your family on the street in Jorvik,” Rurik confided, coming up to them with two twin boys hanging on to each of his ankles, like puppies, and another little girl sitting on his shoulders, tugging on his hair.

“Rurik!” Tykir exclaimed. “I thought you went to Scotland. But, nay, I see you still have your blue mark; so I guess you never made it that far.” He stared at him in puzzlement. “What are you doing here?”

“Trapped,” was Rurik’s only response as he spun on his heels and hobbled away with his human cargo.

Tykir shook his head slowly, totally confused.

“What you need is a cup of mead,” Eirik said, and everyone agreed. They all exchanged the oddest looks with each other as they nodded in agreement. Bolthor, Adam and Rurik were grinning like lackwits as Selik whispered something in their ears.

Something very strange was amiss at Dragonstead.

But first he would have a cup of mead to clear his head.

Tykir shrugged off Eadyth and Rain, who were clinging to him like a long-lost swain, and began to walk through the bailey toward the keep door. Once he glanced back over his shoulder, then looked again. “Good Lord, the bunch of you are following after me like a herd of ducklings after a goose.”

“Quack, quack!” Eirik opined.

“Do not be laying any eggs,” Selik advised him. “Or anything else.”

“Some people are so immature,” Tykir remarked. Then, “Phew! What is that stink in here?” He was about to enter the great hall when the stench assailed his nostrils. “Has Rapp of the Big Wind been hereabouts?”

“Nay, it’s the gammelost,” Eadyth announced gaily from behind him. He could hear giggles and male guffaws as well, but he had no time for wondering about their behavior. He was too busy staring at the most wonderful sight in the world.