Page 72 of The Bewitched Viking

God above! The man is adorable.

Aaarrgh! Where did that thought come from? He is not adorable. Not, not, not!

“So, you like your first view of Dragonstead?” Tykir asked, changing the subject.

“Yea,” she said with much enthusiasm. “It must be so beautiful here in the summer.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’m always gone by then.”

Her heart went out to the lout—way too many times this day, actually. She could see how much Dragonstead meant to him, and yet each spring he tore himself away to wander on his various travels. There was something significant to be learned here.

But Alinor had no time for that. She had just noticed something more important. Tykir’s face was flushed, and not from the cold.

“Are you sick?” she demanded, reaching up to place a hand on his forehead.

He was burning up with fever.

He tried to step back from her but swayed from side to side. The rigors of the trip, on top of his already sorry condition, were finally catching up with him.

“Bolthor!” she cried, and the giant came immediately to her side, taking in the situation at a glance. Just in time, he caught Tykir and picked up his lifeless form in his arms.

Tykir the Great was deathly ill.

It was a most auspicious beginning to Alinor’s winter stay at Dragonstead.

Three days later, Alinor sat at the kitchen table chopping a plump raw chicken, along with leeks and various dried herbs for yet another kettle of rich chicken broth. Later she would drop tiny dough balls into the soup pot, once the dish had been bubbling for three or four hours, when the meat began to fall off the bones in shreds. The dough balls were a secret touch she’d learned from Leah, a Jewish merchant’s wife who’d passed through Graycote a year past. Leah had also suggested keeping the chicken feet, gizzard and heart in the brew for extra flavor, even though some cooks tossed them in the midden.

“Chicken again?” Bolthor asked, rolling his eyes heavenward. “’Tis past time to put a haunch of wild boar on the spit. Or a few rabbits. Men need red blood, lest their virility suffers.”

Men need red blood? For virility? Where did that bit of male non-wisdom come from? “Chicken broth is good for the winter ailment,” Alinor said defensively. “I know some of the men…well, most of the men…are stallfed on my chicken soup, but—”

“You’ve been serving it three times a day since our arrival at Dragonstead,” he pointed out dryly.

Alinor knew many at Dragonstead were still leery of her as a possible witch, but fortunately, they’d allowed her to minister to their master’s illness. They watched her closely, though.

“I care not a fig for the finicky palates of you men if the liquid strengthens your sniffling systems, especially Tykir, whose fever broke only yestereve, praise be to God!

“Finicky appetites! You are killing our appetites,” Bolthor grumbled. “But, yea, ’tis good news that Tykir is finally on the mend.”

Bolthor had paused to speak with her as he was passing through the scullery with a huge armload of firewood. It took a massive amount of wood to heat the three hearths in the great hall, the cook fire in the kitchen and the fire-places in two of the upper bedchambers, from late autumn till spring. Luckily, the woodmen had worked nonstop since last winter to set by a goodly supply.

As Bolthor left the kitchen, she heard him muttering something about a new saga, “Alinor the Witch and the Deadly Chicken Potion.”

“Pay no mind to Bolthor,” Girta the Round said. Alinor had forgotten Girta was behind her in the kitchen, rolling out circles of unleavened dough made of rye, barley and peas, to be baked on flat wheels with a central hole. Later the bread would be stored by threading on a pole near the hearth. “Men don’t know what’s good for them. Take Jostein the Smith, who has been smitten for years with Bodil the Ripe, our head dairymaid.”

Huh? Alinor didn’t even know half the people Girta spoke of. Alinor’s gaze followed Girta’s flour-covered finger to the open door of the buttery, where the voluptuous Bodil was making the Viking soft-curded cheese known as skyr.

“Jostein took her to bed, on more than one occasion, I might add, and never offered her the wedding vows,” Girta rambled on. “Now Bodil is about to wed with Rapp of the Big Wind, and Jostein is heartsick. Moons about the keep like a wounded cow, and for the life of me, I cannot fathom…”

As Girta gossiped on, Alinor smiled at the jolly, talkative woman, with her distinctive blond-braided crown. Girta supervised the affairs of Dragonstead with an iron hand, along with her husband, Red Gunn, the steward, who was as slim as Girta was round. Dragonstead was a small estate, but it ran with remarkable efficiency due to this couple’s combined efforts, both indoors and out, with the master in residence or not.

Alinor was impressed.

When Tykir was gone on his trading ventures, there were at least two dozen house carls—freemen and women, not to mention a handful of children—living at Dragonstead, not including the village folks. When Tykir returned, that number often increased by a hundred or more. Not an overlarge populace, even for a small keep.

But Girta was still talking about the Dragonstead household whilst Alinor’s mind had been awandering. Alinor interrupted her. “Why do they call him Rapp of the Big Wind?”

“Oh! You might very well ask that,” Girta tutted. “Because he can break wind at will, and does so overmuch. Men think it is a great talent, foolish dolts that they are. In truth, Rapp can clear a room in a heartbeat, if you get my meaning.”