"Me, too," said Ingrith as she stirred a fragrant cauldron of fish stew with dumplings floating on the top, then checked the eel barrel to make sure there were enough of the slimy creatures for her special eel pie. "If you all are going to join a harem, I'm not staying here in this… this… prison. I want to cook for one man who will appreciate my efforts, not three hundred men who would just as soon have boiled possum, as long as ale abounds to wash it down."
I'm going to wring Rashid's neck.
"Me, too," said Breanne, who was peeling apples for one of Ingrith's far-famed tarts, "but only if the harem is in the Eastlands. I would love to study their building methods there."
"How silly of you, Breanne!" Drifa said with a soft laugh. "My mother told me much about her homeland, and I do not think houris would be permitted such freedom… to roam the cities gaping at buildings and such."
"They can, too," Breanne countered. "Rashid told me a good harem concubine can do anything she pleases."
I am going to wring Rashid's neck.
"Well, none of you are going to join a harem. So forget that. Father would never permit it. And, Drifa, stop putting those flower petals in my bathwater. I'm going to smell like a posy."
"That is the purpose, Tyra. To remove the stink of horse and ship and battle from you and make you smell more like a woman," Drifa said. Under her breath, she muttered, "Good practice for being in a harem, too. They smell like flowers there, I would wager. Desert flowers."
That last comment about houri practice didn't even merit a response from Tyra, who was the least likely to become any man's desert flower.
"As to Father not permitting it," Drifa said, "that is the best part. Rashid said the harem is the perfect solution to our problem. Since none of us can marry till you do, Tyra, and since it appears you will never wed, then how can Father object if we settle for being the next best thing? Concubines."
I am going to wring Rashid's neck.
"I think you have all gone barmy. Harems! Not in this lifetime!"
"Perhaps one of us could try it, and if it works out, the rest can follow," the ever practical Vana offered.
Borrowing a phrase of Adam's that she herself had used before, Tyra said, "No harem. Not now. Not ever."
Silence permeated the room then as her sisters harumphed their discontent and murmured such comments as "Tyrant!" or "She never wants us to have fun," or "Who named her master?" Tyra ignored the muttering and began washing her long hair with the aid of one of the kitchen thralls.
When she came up from rinsing the soap from the heavy strands, it was to hear that her sisters had given up on one objectionable subject only to move on to another equally objectionable one.
"What is he like?" Ingrith asked.
"Who?" Tyra answered, as if she didn't well know whom her sister referred to. Adam was the subject of everyone's conversation at Stoneheim. She stood and wrapped one linen towel around her head turban style and began to towel off her body with another.
"The healer, of course," Ingrith said.
"Arrogant," she replied flatly.
"Really?" Ingrith was leaning over the shoulder of the heavyset cook, Signe, who was kneading the flat, unleavened manchet bread dough for baking. The cook's assistant, Arva, also got her attention. Ingrith watched closely as Arva ground grain—rye, barley, and even peas—on the large round stone known as a quern. Little by little, Arva poured grain through a hole in the top, then turned the top stone around and around with the handle, thus squashing the grain between the two stones and eventually turning it into flour. It was a long, tedious process, especially in a keep this size, where at least one hundred loaves were consumed per day. Meanwhile, Ingrith continued to talk. "Seems to me I heard Rashid say something like 'Confidence is a great aphrodisiac.' "
I am really, really going to wring Rashid's neck... and his tongue, as well.
Vana stopped her flower arranging and tilted her head, as if pondering some great question. "So, you say Adam is arrogant? Hmmm. Arrogance is not such a bad thing… especially in a handsome man."
"He is not all that handsome," Tyra lied.
"Are you demented, Tyra?" Breanne exclaimed. She had finished peeling apples and set her knife down. "The man is godly handsome, and you well know it."
Tyra felt her face heat with embarrassment. In truth, she'd had the same thoughts about him being godly handsome.
"Did you notice the way he moves?" Vana asked Drifa. "So smooth and… well, sensual, rather like a large cat."
Her other sisters agreed with a communal, "Yea."
Moves? He moves sensually? Holy Thor! Now I will be watching the way he moves.
"And his hands," Breanne added. "I like a man with competent hands. Long-fingered. One could just imagine what those hands could do when…" Her voice drifted off as she bit her bottom lip and got a dreamy look in her eyes, imagining the gods only knew what.
Drifa, Ingrith, and Vana all sighed. Their eyes glazed over, too.
That's all I need. To picture the rogue's fine-fingered hands doing sinful things to me. For the love of Frigg, I wager that image is now firmly planted in my feeble brain.
"Gilly, that new maid from Erin, was in the sweat-house where he went to bathe a short time ago," Ingrith confided in a whispered voice that bespoke some secret about to be divulged. "She said he has a very big—"
"That's it! Enough! No more about the healer!" Tyra interjected before Ingrith could finish whatever observation she was about to make about the brute's anatomy.
I am not thinking about what is big on his body. I am not thinking about what is big on his body. I am not thinking…
"She's blushing! Tyra is blushing!" Vana said with a hoot of glee.
I am not blushing. Not, not, not!
"You know what that means," Vana said.
Tyra's other sisters began to talk all at once, like a flock of cackling chicks.
"Oh, for the love of Loki! Could it possibly be?" Breanne said. She was staring at Tyra in the oddest way.
"What? What?" Tyra asked.
"Ooh, ooh, my prayers to Freyja have been answered," Vana added. She was staring oddly at Tyra, too.
"What? What?"
Drifa glanced at Breanne and Vana, then at Tyra, and exclaimed, "Thank the gods!"
"What? What?"
Ingrith stopped pouring plum custard into a large pottery bowl. She was nodding her head with some sudden understanding. "Perchance I will cook meals in my own home afore I am gray-haired after all."
"What? What?"
"It appears as if I won't have to join a harem after all." Vana put her flowers aside and came to hug Tyra. "I am so happy for you."
"What in bloody hell are you all talking about?" Tyra said when she was finally able to escape Vana's embrace. It was always embarrassing to be hugged by Vana, whose head barely reached her chin, so tiny was she… compared to her, leastways.
The sisters all looked at each other, one to the other, slowly, beaming as if they'd just been handed the moon.
Ingrith was the one who finally spoke for the group. " 'Tis obvious, really, sister dear. You like the healer. You really like the healer."
Tyra drew her brows together and cocked her head in confusion. "Speak plainly."
Drifa patted Tyra on the forearm and explained, "Let us just say that, to our mind, it appears as if you would not object overmuch to playing Eve to his Adam."
Oh, my gods and goddesses!
"Rashid says she would make a good harem houri."
"Perchance she will be Adam's first. Houri, I mean."
"Nay, nay, nay! She will be his wife."
"Then we can all marry."
"Ingrith, you will take care of the wedding feast," Breanne said brightly. "Vana can make the wedding finery. Drifa, the flowers… and the music, too. Your voice and lute playing are the best of all of us. And I can construct a wedding canopy."
Over and over, Tyra tried to interject her objections into their discussion. Finally she took on he
r best military stance, legs widespread, hands on hips, and shouted, "Silence."
When the kitchen became so quiet they could hear the crackle of the fire and the steady sniffle of one of the maids cowering in the corner, she spoke, calmly but with a firmness that would not be denied. "There will be no wedding betwixt me and the healer… or any other man. But this I promise you. If our father lives, I will find a way for me to go my own way, and for each of you to wed. Do you accept my word?"
Each of them nodded in turn. Soon, everyone was off and about her business, and Tyra walked toward the bedchamber to complete her toilette.
It was final, then. She would never wed. Everyone understood that now. Although she'd never been quite so adamant with her sisters before, it was something she'd known for a long time.
Why then did the prospect suddenly make her feel so sad?
Adam was resting on the linen-covered straw mattress of an alcove bed in the small guest bedchamber he'd been assigned when he sensed someone tiptoeing into his room, uninvited and unannounced.
He'd lain down on the bed after returning from a bath in the sweathouse, never intending to sleep before the evening meal. But the mattress was so comfortable and he must have been more tired than he'd realized, for he'd soon dozed off.
His eyes opened to mere slits, then shot wide open. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed to the rush-covered floor. For the love of the Lord! He should have pretended to be still sleeping. How was he going to handle this latest disaster?
Standing before him was Alrek, his skin pink-scrubbed and his pale hair washed and clubbed back at the nape with a leather thong. Worn but clean garments covered his skinny form.
Standing behind him was a boy of about eight. He kept peeking around Alrek's arms, gazing at Adam as if he were some fascinating creature. God knows what Alrek had been saying about him. Calling him the Miraclemaker, he would wager.
A toddler of no more than two was clinging to Alrek's neck, her chubby legs wrapped around his hips. Her blond hair had been clumsily braided and secured into a crown atop her head. She was adorable.
Another girl stood at Alrek's other side.
"I wanted you to meet me fam'ly," Alrek explained quickly, sensing Adam's rising vexation. The boy was pestsome beyond belief.
"This is me brother, Tunni." Alrek indicated with a jerk of his head the youthling standing shyly behind him. "He's eight… the man of the fam'ly when I'm off a-Viking."
Oh, bloody hell!
"And this heavy bundle is Besji." He shifted his hold on the toddler's bottom cradled in the crook of his right arm. She must indeed be heavy for the boy to carry about.
He should probably offer to help.
But he wouldn't.
"Besji is two. Thank the Lord she can hold her piss these days till she gets to the garderobe. What a job it was fer me and Tunni to be changing her linens every five minutes, or so it seemed. Babes do piss a lot, you know."
Yea, I know. I took care of Adela at that young age.
Which brought him to the absolute worst part of this whole scenario: the little girl, about four years old, who held tightly on to Alrek's other hand.
"And this is Kristin."
Her blond hair hung loose to the shoulders of her garment… an ankle-length shift covered with an open-sided, full-length apron. The thumb of her free hand was planted firmly in her rosebud mouth.
Adela, he thought, and could have wept at the bittersweet resemblance.
"Why are you here?" he snapped.
Alrek flinched, but, stubborn snot that he was, he raised his chin and said, "We're jest here to welcome you to Stoneheim. We're jest bein' friendly like."
That is just wonderful. A dwarf-sized welcoming troop. "Oh. Well, thank you very much. If that is all—"
"Methinks you need some helpers," Alrek added in a rush before Adam could protest or say something mean-spirited, which he most assuredly would have done.
"Perchance Tunni could run errands for you. Kristin is good at makin' up beds and such. Takes her a while, but she gets the job done by and by. And me… well, I was thinking I could go down to the stables and take care of yer horse."
Alrek was out of breath by the time he finished his long-winded plea… and that was what it was. A plea.
"Or I could polish yer sword."
Adam was horrified at the prospect of the disaster-prone child handling a sharp object or standing near a nervous stallion. "Uh, your offer is generous, but Destiny, my horse, is being cared for by one of the Stoneheim grooms. And I just honed the blade of my sword a sennight ago. 'Tis best not to overhandle a sword."
"I never knew that. Do not overhandle a sword. I will have to remember that. See, Tunni, I told you how smart the man was."
If the rascal thought he was going to soften him with flattery, he was sorely deluded. Adam was about to tell the lot of them to go away and stop bothering him, but the little girl—Kristin—the one who could be Adela all those years ago, except her hair was blond and Adela's had been black, and her eyes were honey brown while Adela's had been blue… well, she was losing her shyness. Inch by inch she moved closer to Adam, who would have inched away from her if his bed wasn't built into the wall.
When she was practically nose to nose with him, she put a tiny hand on his forearm and said in her squeaky, little-girl voice, "I like you."
Adam could not take much more of this agony. He put his face in his hands, trying his best not to lash out at the children, who had no way of knowing how much their very presence affected him.
The little girl hugged him then. Nuzzling her nose into the crook of his neck, wrapping her sticklike arms around his shoulders, patting him on the back as if to comfort him, she whispered the most incredible thing: "Be happy."
The selfsame words Adela had whispered to him just before she died.
Tyra was miserable.
Her father was deathly ill and might very well pass to the Other World on the morrow if the healer's operation failed. Even now, the Valkyries could be preparing an escort to Asgard for him.
Her sisters were nigh driving her mad with their constant nagging about marriage, marriage, marriage. And as always when in their company, she felt so… inferior.
Alrek and his brood had latched on to Adam and Rashid like barnacles on a ship's bottom and were tripping over themselves trying to do Adam favors he neither wanted or deserved. Like right now, they were presumably off at the well house laundering Adam's hose… a job he had no doubt given them just to get them out from underfoot.
She was no worse than Alrek, though. She, who had disdained men for many a year, had developed this embarrassing fascination with the man. When he was out of sight, she kept looking for him. When he was within sight, she tried her best to avoid looking at him. And when he was close to her—oh, when he was close to her, by all the gods and goddesses!—her face heated, her heart raced, her breasts swelled, and she felt the most uncomfortable ache in her lower belly. She hated it!
She let her gaze roam the great hall that was so familiar to her. Raised platforms surrounded each of the five large open hearths. On these platforms were long trestle tables, brought in just before each of the two daily meals, and ornately carved settles, or benches, at the lower end of the hall.
She sat at the high table on the dais of the great hall now, awaiting the evening meal… sure to be a feast of sorts, as all meals were at Stoneheim under Ingrith's supervision. Sure enough, a trumpet blared just then, announcing the start of the evening meal—another of Ingrith's bright ideas for enhancing their dinner, which the Viking men snickered about behind her back but put up with nonetheless. No one wanted to offend sweet Ingrith. The housecarls and kitchen thralls began filing into the hall, carrying platters and platters of food for the three hundred or more Viking hesirs and their ladies who had gathered there, sitting at the long trestle tables, sipping their mead and beer.
By thunder! It was only a welcome-home dinner… and a subdued one at that becau
se of their king's illness. Still, there were more than eight types of fish, including baked sea trout stuffed with onions and mushrooms, an enormous whole cod that had been roasted over hot coals, creamed and salt herring, pickled eels, salmon in dill sauce, a cod and leek soup, several dozen baked brown trout, and hákarl, or cured shark. Most Norsemen would be satisfied with plain fish, dried or raw, smeared with butter.
Aside from the fish, there were an entire reindeer pit-roasted in hot coals; pork and leek stew slow-simmered with carrots, onions, celery, and barley; a stringy goat pottage; a large goose stuffed with hard-boiled eggs; and that ever popular hrútspungur, or ram's testicles pickled in whey and pressed into a cake. Bowls of butter accompanied huge platters of flatbread, along with pots of horseradish and mustard. An array of hard and soft cheeses included the Norse favorite skyr, a creamy curd cheese often flavored with fruit.
And vegetables! Blessed Freyja! There were cabbages, field beans, peas, carrots, and turnips. For the sweet palate, the traditional haverbread or oatcakes, plus stewed prunes, cinnamon apples, hazelnut tarts, and fresh berries with cream.
It was a veritable feast fit for a king, but the everyday fare at Stoneheim. If Ingrith didn't wed soon, she was going to turn them all into milksops. Or fat Vikings.
With a long sigh, Tyra put her face in her hands and wondered how she was going to survive this night… and the next day. And food was the least of her troubles, she realized as Adam came up and sat down beside her.
He smelled of clean soap and warm male. He smelled good enough to eat.
Chapter Six
"Why are you so sad?" Adam asked.
Without being invited, he had sat down in the chair next to her, which must have become empty when Rafn went to the garderobe. Not that being invited ever seemed necessary for this rogue.
"I'm not sad, really. Just somber, thinking about everything to be done on the morrow. Worrying about my father."
He nodded his understanding. Looking about the massive hall, he must be noticing that despite the hum of conversation and laughter, the same air of sobriety had settled in like an impending storm cloud. Tension lay in the background of all that her people said and did. They were all waiting for the next day and the outcome of the medical procedure on their king.