Page 58 of The Bewitched Viking

“That is why the butter would not come this morn,” one slovenly maid servant called out from the doorway leading to the scullery. “I knew there was a bad aura in the air. ’Twas a sign of the witch’s approach.” As she talked, she was scratching her head, which was no doubt lice-ridden. In Tykir’s opinion, the butter probably had not come because the lazy wench had not churned hard enough.

“Beware of her familiar,” one man cautioned. “Where is it?” He and others at his table were pivoting their heads this way and that, trying to discern the familiar.

“Her familiars are back in Britain,” Bolthor informed them. “They are sheep.”

“Do you say she has more than one familiar, and that they are sheep?” asked a powerfully built woman sitting at the high table. ’Twas Anlaf’s older sister, Gudny. “She must be a very powerful witch.”

“A spell she has put on my dog, Beast,” Rurik noted, despite Tykir’s warning that he hold his tongue. “Methinks she may have made Beast one of her familiars, too.”

Gudny seemed impressed, and was assessing Alinor through narrowed, speculative eyes. Everyone knew that Gudny, who was as tall as a man and as strong as a horse, had been searching for a love potion these many years in hopes of luring her wayward husband Alfrigg back to the bed furs. ’Twas said she had an insatiable appetite for swiving—though Tykir could hardly credit that, more like an insatiable appetite for eating—and Alfrigg had chosen instead to live amongst the monks on a leper island.

Throughout the great hall, a murmur of fear and outrage was passing in waves, emanating from the spot where Alinor still stood with Bolthor and Rurik. People who had been sitting closest stood and moved away, putting hands or arms over their faces so the witch could not give them the evil eye…and over their private parts, as well.

“Is she the witch who put the mark on your face?” one Norse maiden asked Rurik in an awestruck voice. Tykir couldn’t tell if the awe was for Rurik’s winsome face or the power of the witch.

“Nay,” Rurik answered, his interest caught by the maiden’s fair face and even fairer bosom. “’Twas another witch.”

“Another witch!” Anlaf roared. “Didst thou dare to bring two witches to my daughter’s wedding feast? Oh, holy Thor! Do we perchance have a coven in our midst?”

A number of the wedding guests could be seen ducking under the trestle tables at that alarming prospect.

Alinor had the nerve to snicker.

“Nay, I did not bring two witches,” Tykir said wearily. In truth, he wasn’t sure he’d even brought one. But that was not the issue. Nor one for him to decide. “Anlaf, you had a…problem,” Tykir began to explain in a deliberately patient voice, though he was losing his patience by the minute. “You sent a messenger asking for my help, and I agreed…to gain the release of Adam.”

“But I was never a hostage,” Adam interrupted. “I came to Trondelag several months past, planning to go home to Britain for a brief visit. Come spring, I will be returning to the Arab lands, where the study of medicine is more advanced than in any other part of the world. In the meantime, I decided to stay in Anlaf’s court for a few months in order to study with his healer, the good priest, Caedmon.” Adam’s eyes shifted involuntarily as he spoke to the far side of the hall, where Tykir saw Father Caedmon nod his head in agreement. But wait. Tykir thought he heard the slight tinkling of bells at that table. Instantly, he connected that sound with the dark-haired maid shifting restlessly there, next to the priest.

Tykir stifled a laugh. So, Adam was delayed by the slave girl of the infamous bells, not coercion by King Anlaf, and not his scholarly endeavors, either.

It was not surprising to see a Roman priest in a Viking assembly. Many Norsemen practiced both Christian and Norse religions, and the bishops willingly sent priest healers into their heathen midst in hopes of gaining souls at the same time they salved wounds and splinted broken bones.

Adam, on the other hand, ever did latch onto any person who could teach him something new in the healing arts. And women ever did latch onto the fair Adam, who claimed to have learned things, other than medicine, from the Arabs.

Tykir clicked his teeth with disgust at Adam. “You are lucky your father and Eirik did not come with their troops to storm Anlaf’s castle for your return.”

Adam’s face went pale. “I did not think,” he murmured.

That was an understatement.

Tykir turned back to Anlaf. “Whether Adam stayed here of his own accord is not important. You led me to believe he was a ‘friendly hostage’ and that you would release him if I delivered the witch. Well, I have fulfilled my part of the bargain.”

Anlaf thought a moment, then smiled widely. “You are free to go, Adam,” the king said magnanimously. “See, Tykir. Now we are even.”

“Not bloody likely.”

“Nr enden er god er allting godt,” the king said, urging peace. “All’s well that ends well.”

Tykir balked. “I see no satisfactory end here.”

“How so?”

“You know not for certain that the lady is a witch, Anlaf. If she is not, ’twas unfair of you to have brought her here.”

“Well, take her back then.”

Tykir gritted his jaw. He really did not want to fight with Anlaf. He was tired. He was angry. He was itching to knock out a tooth or two. “I am not going back to Britain till next autumn,” he said, pacing his words slowly. “You demanded. I delivered. End of story.”

“Story? Story?” Bolthor jumped into the conversation. Tykir hadn’t realized that he and Rurik had drawn swords as well and just waited for his word to defend him, if attacked. “Dost want a saga about this? How about ‘Tykir the Great and the Uncrooking of the King’s Crook’?”