Page 10 of Viking in Love

With one last survey of the jabbering children, he remarked to Gerard, “How long since any of them have bathed?”

Gerard straightened with indignation. “M’lord!” Gerard always called him a lord, even though he was far from it. “M’lord, they are alive and none are missing any limbs.”

“All appears to be in order then. And I must compliment you on that great trick…whistling them into order.”

“I am still working on it,” Gerard muttered.

Caedmon grinned.

Gerard, who had more gray hairs than when Caedmon had last seen him, did not grin back. Children would do that to a man, especially Caedmon’s children. Apparently Caedmon had insulted him by adding child minding to his duties. Ah, well, he would calm his feathers later.

Kissing Beth on the cheek, he set her down.

Now, for Father Luke.

Caedmon knocked on the chapel door.

No answer.

He yelled, “Father Luke. Open up. ’Tis I, Caedmon. You can come out now.”

Still no answer.

Exhaling with a whooshy breath, he kicked at the door. Once. Twice. Three times before it splintered open. The smell that hit him was putrid. And there was Father Luke, kneeling on his prie-dieu. Dead as a door hinge. Must have expired weeks ago, and no one had bothered to check, thinking he was still in hiding.

“Somebody, bury this priest. Now!”

Gerard and several servants scuttled to do as he ordered, fingers pinching their noses at the stink.

By the cross! Can things get any worse? Swearing one long stream of curses before anyone else, adult or child, could make demands on him, he walked further into the great hall and yelled, “Where’s the ale?”

To which his men laughed and yelled back, “Welcome home!”

Then he slipped on something squishy in the rushes and almost fell on his arse.

At which his men once again laughed and yelled, “Welcome home!”

Someone was going to get a piece…of her mind…

The first thing Breanne noticed on entering Larkspur’s great hall at noon of the following day, after a long, surreptitious nighttime ride through the hills and dales of Northumbria, was the smell. The second was the number of children running about like wild animals. The third was the large number of half-eaten apples lying on the trestle tables, which should have been dismantled after the last meal. The fourth was the lack of activity by those adults who were about, some of whom appeared to be sleeping off the alehead. At the very least, there should be servants about, working.

Although they had arrived more than an hour ago, it had taken some convincing on their part to get the sentries to allow them entry. A guardsman, who had gone to get permission from the master, came back red faced, saying he could not find him.

How odd!

The sentries kept glancing at Rashid and the two Norse soldiers who accompanied Breanne and her sisters, but finally gave in after a quelling lecture by Tyra on military protocol and family hospitality. The brothers Ivan and Ivar, who comprised their two-man guard, were now in the stables taking care of the seven horses they had ridden here, being hovered over by twice that many Larkspur soldiers who were still unsure of their intentions.

“These rushes must not have been changed in a year,” Breanne commented, waving a hand in front of her nose.

“Four months,” the steward, Gerard, corrected her. “The master has been gone almost a year.”

“But he is here now?”

Gerard nodded hesitantly. “He arrived yestermorn. Does he expect you?”

She felt her face flush.

“Not exactly, but I am certain he will welcome us,” Tyra interrupted, standing to her full height, towering over the little man. “After all, he is my cousin.”