But she was freezing cold.
Rising from the snowy ground where she must have fallen, she stood and saw a massive fort-like wood structure on a flat-topped hill in front of her. Sort of like the Montana buttes, but different. Possibly man-made.
Cnut was standing beside her, equally stunned. “I do not believe this. I do not believe this,” he kept repeating.
“Another little mistake?” she asked.
“A big one,” he replied, without looking at her.
She smacked him again on the arm.
He just ignored her.
“Where . . . are . . . we?” she gasped out, shivering. This wasn’t just cold. It was Alaska cold. It was North Pole cold. It was restaurant walk-in freezer cold.
“Home.” He was staring forward, still not looking at her, but she could see his breath frost in the air before him.
“Home . . . where?”
He turned toward her and said, not at all happy, “The Norselands. And it’s 850 A.D.”
Chapter 8
Back to the future, in reverse . . .
Cnut began to climb up the path built into the motte toward the wood castle that had been his home for more than ten years long, long ago. He had mixed feelings about returning home.
One, he didn’t know if this was a teletransport mistake on his part, like the brief spurt into the Old West had been. Or was this something deliberate planned by Michael? It had to be the latter. Nothing happened without Michael knowing about it. On the other hand, Michael liked nothing better than seeing a Viking fall on his arse, so to speak.
Two, was it a punishment or a second chance for him to make amends for his sins of the past? How did he feel about that? Well, he’d been making amends for a thousand and more years already. Didn’t that count for something?
Three, he had an obligation to help Andrea, who kept swatting at him every time she caught up with him, and calling him various names, like moron, idiot, and the more imaginative nincompoop, whatever that meant, something to do with shit, obviously. Probably shithead. “What about Celie?” she kept asking. Over and over and over.
At the moment, he had no idea where he would be five minutes from now, let alone where her sister was. He could handle only one problem at a time.
Four, he wasn’t sure where they’d land if he tried the teletransport again, considering his first two efforts today. Possibly a cave in prehistoric times. With Andrea along as his very own Ugga. And the only food an occasional dinosaur bone to gnaw on. Michael did have a warped sense of humor betimes.
Five, Cnut had come to enjoy all the modern conveniences of the twenty-first century. How could he now live without them? Cars; restaurants; television; good, plentiful food and alcohol; indoor plumbing; doughnuts (preferably cream-filled); electricity; cheeseburgers; bottled beer; delivery pizza—the list was endless. On the other hand, there was something to be said for the simple life. He couldn’t think of a thing at the moment, but there surely was.
Six, he wondered if he was even a vangel anymore. Had everything that had happened these many centuries been for naught, wiped out, and he was back where it had all begun? But no, evidence of that stood beside him reeking of iced coconut. Besides, he thought, running his tongue under his upper lip, the fangs were still there. And he would bet the wing bumps were still on his shoulders. What did it mean?
Seven, Cnut’s stomach rumbled, and he felt a voracious hunger and thirst come over him. He wanted . . . needed food and drink. Just like the old days. A horn of ale and a hunk of manchet bread dunked in honey would do in a pinch, until something more substantial could be found. Mayhap Andrea could whip up one of her—
“Oh my God! Bears!” Andrea squealed suddenly and grabbed on to his arm, almost toppling him over.
“I wish you wouldn’t swear,” he said instinctively. Then, “What bears? Oh, those bears up on the motte.” He laughed.
She swatted him again. “What moat? Do you see any water or a drawbridge? There is no moat, idiot!”
“Motte, not moat,” he corrected. “I’ll explain the difference later.” To the “bears,” he yelled out a greeting, “Hail!”
Andrea repeated, “Idiot!”
They’d reached the flat-topped surface of the motte where they were confronted by three heavily armed hirdsmen holding forth swords and spears and battle-axes. They wore long bearskin cloaks and pieced–squirrel fur hats with ear flaps and gloves of reindeer hide. Their faces were heavily haired with winter beards and mustaches.
“They’re not bears,” he told Andrea. “They’re men.”
“Why don’t I feel better knowing that?” she said. “They smell like bears.”
“Well, yes, it’s winter, and bathing—”
“Halt!” one of them said.
“Begone, you villains. There is no food for you here,” the second one yelled, raising his spear.
Still another said, “Was it you who killed the master’s prize horse? We could smell it roasting in yon village, all the way up to the castle.”
Andrea shivered like a wet kitten, and put her hand in his. She was probably frightened. Well, of course she was. She thought she was in the presence of three bears.
He squeezed her hand in reassurance and drew her closer to his side. Despite the cold and shock, he had to smile at the sweet scent of coconut that wafted around her. Snow had begun to fall in big flakes that he imagined were coconut flakes come from the sky. Mocking gifts from Michael. He barely caught himself from sticking out his tongue to catch a few.
“Is that you, Ivar?” he asked the young fellow who’d mentioned the dead horse . . . an issue he would address later, but he could guess which horse it was. His other Percheron. For some reason, loss of a horse, albeit a very expensive one, didn’t seem important right now. “Why is your father not here doing sentry duty?” Ivar Jorsson was the son of Jor Snaggle-Tooth, his chief hersir, head of all the Hoggstead housecarls.
“Me father passed on to Valhalla a sennight ago. Mauled by a rabid dog, he was.”
“Who has taken his place?”
“No one. Yet,” Ivar said as he narrowed his eyes to peer more closely at Cnut. “Is that you, master? Where you been?”
Around the world.
“Everyone searched for you, even up to the northern woods. We figgered you was dead.”
I was. I am.
“You look different. Skin and bones. Was it the wasting disease?”
More like a diet to lose two hundred wasted pounds.
“Master?” Andrea questioned him.
He put a forefinger to his lips. “Later,” he whispered. To Ivar, he offered his condolences, “My sympathies on your father’s passing. He was a good man. Sorry I was not here for his funeral rites, but I had to, um, go away for a while. No wasting disease. Just, um, lack of food.”
“Hah! Don’t we know about that! The villagers raided the second storage shed, and we are nigh starving up at the keep, too.” It was the second hirdsman speaking. Cnut recognized him now by his bright red facial hair. It was Red Ranulf. “Was you captured by Huns? Or them bloody Saxons? Mebbe outlaw Vikings? Did they starve you?”
No, I starved myself. ’Tis called a diet. “Something like that,” Cnut replied.
“Asbol the Witch claimed a vision,” the third hirdsman, Boris Bad Breath, said on a waft of bad breath, “where she saw the villagers turning you on a fiery spit and feeding their babies your entrails.”
Yuck!
Ivar elbowed Boris, who had the grace to blush.
“Ivar, you mentioned that your father died a sennight ago. How long have I been gone?”
“Four sennights,” Ivar answered, staring at him warily at what must have seemed a barmy question.
“A month!” Cnut exclaimed before he could catch himself.
“Is it really Jarl Sigurdsson?” Boris asked Ranulf.
“It is, it is,” Ranulf declared. “I can tell by the way he frowns. Praise the gods, the jarl has returned.”
“Jarl?” Andrea q
uestioned again. “Not the jar business again!”
“Now things will be better,” the third hirdsman said.
With a flurry of movement up ahead, Finngeir the Frugal, Cnut’s steward, came out of the doors that led to his great hall. “What is all the commotion out here? We could hear . . . is that . . . nay, ’tis impossible. Master Sigurdsson?”
“Hello, Finn,” Cnut said.
Finn fell into a dead faint.
A short time later, they were inside the keep. Andrea was parked on a bench in front of one of the great hall’s hearths, thawing out, muttering every imprecation against him she could think of. Finn had been taken to his pallet to rest from the shock. And Cnut was being besieged with questions, rather complaints, from his men . . . and women.
“Did you bring food?”
No, but I brought a chef.
“We’re hungry.”
So am I.
“Greta stole my best gunna. You must hold court and punish her.”
“I did not. It was my gunna to begin with.”
“You gave it to me!”
“I lent it to you.”
Forget the damn gown.
“I’m sick of gruel. Me stomach needs fresh meat.”
“I could eat a boar, all by meself.”
I prefer a pizza with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, peppers, and extra cheese. Even made on a circle of manchet bread.
“The bread is moldy and stinks of mice shit.”
Forget the pizza. A boar flank will do.
“The privy is full, and someone needs to dig a new one.”
Don’t look at me.
“Ye can’t dig a new one in frozen dirt, ye lackwit!”
“Who you calling a lackwit?”
“Finn put a lock on the mead barrel. My throat is parched.”
On and on the complaints went until Cnut raised both hands and bellowed, “Enough!” Glancing around the hall, he began to take note of the conditions, “This place is a pigsty!” Grabbing the closest members of his household, a pair of twin youthlings, he ordered, “Get some rakes and remove all the rushes in this hall. They reek. Then lay down new ones.”
“Huh?” The twins looked at him as if he’d ask them to piss blood.
He gave them a fierce glower, and they ran off to find rakes.
“And you, Britta,” he said, pointing to an elderly servant who was sidling along the wall, probably attempting to escape his attention. “You are in charge of scrubbing down these tables. Lye will probably be needed to penetrate the grease and built-up filth.”
“Me?” Britta squeaked out.
“You. Get several maids to help you.” He pointed to three women in the back of the hall. “You, and you, and you. Help Britta.” When they all just stood, gaping at him, he hollered, “Now!”
They jumped and scuttled off like scared rabbits.
“Ivar!” he called out to the young soldier standing in the doorway. “Gather together all the housecarls. We will meet here in . . .” He glanced down at the watch that he was surprised to see was still on his wrist. He was about to say, In two hours, but instead said, “After the first meal of the day.”
To others, he ordered the hearth ashes to be hauled and taken to the scullery for soap making, firewood to be gathered, all the platters and serving utensils to be taken to the kitchen for washing.
“Who is the head laundress?” he asked no one in particular.
“Edwina was but she has the ague and lies abed this past sennight,” one blowsy-looking wench told him.
“You take over then,” he told her. “I assume the bed linens and clothing are in the same condition as this hall. I want them all washed.”
“But . . . but . . . it’s winter, and . . .” Blowsy Wench protested.
He favored her with one of his glowers.
“If anyone wants to eat here, ever again, they better be working. The new rule, idle hands have empty stomachs.”
He turned then to see Andrea standing before the hearth watching him. She arched her brows and gave him a little salute.
“You!” he said, walking toward her, almost tripping over a dog bone buried in the dirty rushes. “Come with me to the kitchen and see what kind of mess we have there.”
“Is that an order, master?”
“No, that’s a request. With your cooking skills, perhaps you can assess just how bad things are food-wise and give me some advice for fixing things.”
“Are we staying here? What about my sister? I hired you to find Celie and bring her back to Philly.”
“Give me time to figure out what’s happening. Trust me, Andrea. I’ll help you and your sister as soon as I can. Will you give me that time?”
She nodded. What choice did she have? Something else seemed to occur to her then. “Everyone’s speech is so strange here, and yet I can understand. Why is that? Some magic vangel trick?”
He laughed. “No trick. Old Norse and Saxon English were similar enough in this time period that we could understand each other, somewhat, enough to get by. On the other hand, you probably shouldn’t be able to make any sense of medieval English.” Shrugging, he took her hand and was about to lead her from the hall when he looked back and noticed everyone gaping at them.
Halting momentarily, he tucked Andrea in at his side and announced to the room at large, “This is Andrea of Philadelphia. She is your new mistress.”
Then he gave her a kiss, a long one, before she could call him an idiot again.
Even while he was kissing her, and she was too stunned to smack him, he heard someone in the hall ask, “What is that strange smell?”
“I don’t know, but I like it,” another person replied.
He did, too.
It was coconut and peppermint.
Chapter 9
A miracle worker, she was not . . .
Although it was only midday, it was dark outside. They didn’t call this the Land of the Midnight Sun or Polar Nights for nothing. Andrea knew that bit of trivia because she’d checked on the Internet when Cnut had mentioned, at their first meeting, that he came from the Norselands. How’s that for hysterical irrelevance? Hey, with everything that’s happened to me today, I deserve a little hysteria.
Cnut, with a torch in hand, led her down a chilly, dark hallway toward the kitchen, which was presumably connected to this vast, sprawling building, but somewhat separate. Because of the fire hazard, she assumed. Even from here in the corridor, she could feel the heat of the kitchen cook fires up ahead. Otherwise, it would be as frigid as it was outside.
He stopped halfway and turned to her, “You’re angry.”
“No shit, Dick Tracy!” she said, using one of her father’s favorite expressions. She rarely used crudity, but this situation seemed to warrant it. He still held one of her hands, and she jerked it loose. “Of course I’m angry, you idiot. Why wouldn’t I be? Mistress? You think I’ll be your mistress, just because you kiss me? And it wasn’t even a good kiss.” Actually, it was a very nice kiss. Excellent. But he didn’t need to know that.
“That’s what has your braies in a twist?” He seemed surprised.
“My bra isn’t in a twist, and I’d rather you didn’t mention my underwear.”
“Not bra, braies. Like breeches, or long pants.” Then, he paused and cocked his head to the side. “It wasn’t a good kiss? Ah, I’m out of practice, I suppose. I could try again.”
He placed his torch in a wall bracket. There was darkness all around them, except for the light of the kitchen at the other end. She could see him clearly, though, in the torch’s circle of light that cocooned them. In fact, it gave off a bit of warmth.
“Don’t you dare!” She assumed that was why he’d freed his hands. The better to kiss her.
He laughed. “The torch was burning my hand.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, knowing perfectly well what she had thought. “In any case, I didn’t mean that kind of mistress, unless you want the position. Nay, I was giving you a position of authority so my people would
follow your orders. Rather like mistress of the household.”
“Oh,” she said, even though that was presumptuous of him, too.
He leaned against the wall beside her and brushed some strands of hair off her face that had come loose from her ponytail. She realized in that instant that she was still wearing the silly cowboy hat. What must the people in the hall have thought of her, a woman, in this attire?
“And the kiss,” Cnut said in a husky voice as he stared at her lips, “was to show all the men in my keep that you are off limits.”
“As if that’s for you to decide.”
“Believe you me, a comely woman in a Viking hall would result in fighting among the men to see who got first dibs.”
He thinks I’m . . . comely? Skinny Andy Stewart causing a riot? That is ridiculous. And what exactly does he mean by dibs? Ooooh, the jerk is trying to divert me when I have bigger bones to pick with him. “You somehow teletransported us through time to land in some Dark Age hovel.”
“A hovel? Really? My castle is a hovel?”
She waved a hand to encompass their surroundings. “A wood castle that’s more like a fort than my idea of a castle. Yeah, it’s hovel, a big one. And you brought me here, without my permission!”
“Would you rather we’d stayed at the ranch and been demon fodder?”
She hated when he was being logical. And she hated when he stood so close to her that the scent of peppermint came off him in waves, enveloping her. She barely stifled a moan. “But what about Celie? Oh my God! I knew she was in danger with the ISIS creep, but those other . . . things!”
“Your sister is in no danger from the Lucies. Demon vampires are only interested in dreadful sinners which they can take back to Horror and torture into becoming more of their kind. And vangels, more than anything, Lucies want to capture vangels. The only time they kill innocents is when they get in the way of their evil goals.”
“In other words, I could have stayed.”
“And been surrounded by Lucies. Would you have wanted to stay there alone?”
“Yes.” No. “Send me back.” But I’m so frightened! I don’t want to go alone. Can I go alone? I might have to. For Celie. “Take me back.” Yeah, that’s better. Don’t give him a choice. “Now!”