Page 17 of The Bewitched Viking

Alinor and Tykir were not laughing either.

Tykir held her gaze the whole time, and finally he whispered in a low, seductive voice, as he insinuated himself more intimately against the cradle of her hips, “I am bewitched.”

Rurik must have overheard because he commented, “Oh-ho! She must be a witch then, for never would you be attracted to such a pig-ugly wench.”

“Rurik! For shame!” Lady Eadyth chastised.

Alinor was barely aware of all the conversations swirling around her. All she could do was gaze back at Tykir, unable to break eye contact. New, unbelievable sensations swept her body. They were horrible, horrible, horrible. And so wonderful she could scarcely breathe.

I am the one bewitched, she admitted to herself then. And this time when she prayed silently, the well-known Anglo-Saxon prayer took on a new format: “Oh, Lord, from the passion of a Northman, please protect me.”

“I still say we should ride to Selik and Rain’s estate and tell them of Adam’s plight,” Eirik said once again. He’d been saying the same, in one form or another, over the past hour.

“Nay,” Tykir insisted. “You know they would over-react and demand to come with me. They have enough to worry about with the orphanage, Rain’s hospitium and their four children, not to mention her being with child again. Besides, Adam will be safe at Anlaf’s court till I arrive…just restricted a bit.”

They both smiled at the image of Adam being restricted. Ever since he’d been a wild youthling, rescued from the Jorvik streets with his sister Adela, no one had been able to hold Adam down. Tykir looked forward to seeing just how Anlaf had managed to confine the man who’d traveled to many foreign lands, despite his young years, in his quest to become a healer, like Rain.

Tykir was sitting with his brother on the stone steps of the king’s personal steam house within the palace gardens, now brown and dormant with the coming of winter. A young male house servant lifted a heavy wooden bucket of water and tossed it onto the white-hot rocks, causing more steam to issue forth. Soon, they would wash off their perspiration in the icy waters of the adjoining bathhouse, where female thralls would assist them in shaving off the day’s whiskers and donning clean garments.

Vikings did like their personal comforts, cleanliness being one of them. It was why so many females in so many lands fell at their feet and into their bed furs, in Tykir’s opinion. Oh, he and his fellow Norsemen liked to boast of their great looks and superior talents in the bedding, but he suspected that ofttimes it just boiled down to their smelling a mite less than other men.

“But why involve the witch?”

Tykir shrugged. “He asked for a witch in exchange for Adam. At the time, it seemed the expedient thing to do, since I was coming to Northumbria anyhow. You know I could have gained Adam’s release, but it would have involved much coin or fighting. If I’d known then of the excessive delays I would encounter, I never would have bothered.”

“But to kidnap a lady of high station, Tykir? Really, ’tis pushing the bounds of propriety, even for you.”

“A witch of high station,” he corrected and took a long sip of mead from the goblet next to him. “And since when have I ever claimed to be proper?”

“Eadyth will try her best at matchmaking, you know.”

“With a witch?” Tykir hooted.

Eirik shrugged. “Well, can you blame her? All her best efforts with every other kind of female have come to naught.”

Just then, one of the female thralls walked in, carrying a pile of linen towels. She was blond and buxom, and Tykir wasn’t certain, but he thought he knew her. In truth, he might have bedded her once or twice in the past. The woman did a little curtsy and gazed at him shyly.

He winked.

She blushed.

Eirik made a grunting sound of disgust. “I think you should come back to Ravenshire with us for the winter.”

Tykir shook his head, but his attention was on the woman who was bending over to pick up some items of dirty clothing he and Eirik had tossed on the ground. Her backside was in the air. Yea, Tykir recognized the woman now.

“Why not?”

“Why not what?” He turned back to his brother, who was grinning in a knowing fashion and shaking his head at his obvious distraction. “Oh…you mean, why not return to Northumbria? I might have if I’d gathered the witch sennights ago, as I’d planned. Now, there will be no time left, even if I make haste, to get to Hedeby, then Anlaf’s court, then home for the winter.”

Eirik pressed a hand to his thigh with concern. “Ah, Tykir! Is the leg bothering you overmuch?”

“Just in the winter. ’Tis why I prefer to be snug in my own homestead. Then, too, I want to go to the Baltic lands come spring for the first amber harvest of the season.”

“I worry about you, Tykir. I have not always been there when you needed me. I would make up for past mistakes.”

“Do not concern yourself over me, brother,” he said, rising up stark naked before the servant girl, who still lingered. Without saying a word, he lifted the vixen into his arms and carried her, screeching with delight, into the bathhouse, where cleanliness was not his main intent…leastways, not right away.

Just before the door closed after him, Eirik remarked, “We haven’t finished our talk. What will you do with the witch?”