“So it’s food and drink that would make the difference for you?”
“Not just that. I like travel by longship, but I love my motorcycle. And television has its merits. And so many modern conveniences. What do you miss?”
“Warm showers and bubble baths. Gas stoves and my professional kitchen tools. Norah Jones music. The Game of Thrones series on HBO. Gourmet food stores and farmers’ markets. Thrift shops and yard sales.”
“It didn’t take you long to come up with a list.”
“And that’s only a start.”
Thorkel came into the hall then, and Cnut motioned him over. “Have you told the men I’ve scheduled military exercises for this afternoon?”
“I have,” Thorkel said, accepting a horn of ale offered by a passing maid. “They whined and complained about the cold, but they . . . all of us recognize that we have been lax of late. The most exercise we’ve had is dragging that big tree inside for Lady Andrea.” Thorkel winked at Andrea as he said the latter.
Cnut didn’t like Thorkel winking at Andrea. And he didn’t like her smiling in return.
“By the way, are we going to have a yule log tomorrow night, Cnut, or a yule tree like Dyna tells me you’ve had in the past?” Andrea asked.
Thorkel perked up at the mention of Dyna.
And Cnut said, “Whatever you want, dearling.”
She beamed.
And he added, “You can thank me later.”
“Whatever you want, dearling,” she countered.
Which caused Thorkel to choke on his ale.
“Moving right along,” Cnut said, nudging Andrea’s knees under the table, “there is something important I want to discuss with you, Thorkel.”
“Good. There is something I need to discuss with you, too,” Thorkel said.
“Should I leave?” Andrea asked.
“Stay,” Cnut and Thorkel both told her.
“You first,” Cnut said.
“Dyna and I have decided to wed, and we were wondering if we could do it during the Jól festivities.”
“Congratulations, Thorkel. I know you and Dyna will be happy together.” Andrea reached across the table and squeezed Thorkel’s hand.
Cnut didn’t like her squeezing Thorkel’s hand, even if he was betrothed.
“The Christmas . . . I mean, yule celebration will be a perfect time for a wedding, don’t you think, Cnut?” Andrea asked him.
“Certainly,” he said. “Thorkel, I agree with Andrea. Best wishes.
“What did you want to discuss with me?” Thorkel asked then.
“Right. Here’s the situation, Thorkel. If I should disappear suddenly, I want you to take over as jarl of Hoggstead.”
Andrea bristled, thinking he meant disappear, as in being taken by Zeb. Thorkel bristled at the suggestion that Cnut might be taken captive again, or whatever had happened to him last time.
Cnut put up both hands for them to halt before they protested. “You know that I left without warning before,” he pointed out to Thorkel. At the same time, he noticed Andrea relax, getting his direction now. “I can’t predict that it will ever happen again, but if it should, I need to know steps are in place to safeguard Hoggstead.”
“I am not qualified to be jarl,” Thorkel said.
“You are as qualified as anyone else here, and I will instruct you over the coming days. Do you agree?”
Thorkel nodded hesitantly. “Gods willing, it won’t be necessary.”
Any further discussion on the subject was curtailed by several children, including Kugge, running into the hall, shouting, “Visitors coming! Visitors coming!”
When they went outdoors, wearing heavy cloaks and mittens against the ice and snow—not just them, but practically everyone in the keep—they saw Farle and the missing sledge that had gone west more than three sennights past in hopes of purchasing food products from any estates or markets with excess. Farle’s wagon sledge was piled high with goods.
But that wasn’t all.
There were three more sledges behind him, piled equally high, and behind them a drover leading two cows and several goats.
“Bless the gods!” Girda was heard to remark.
“Who is that woman?” Thorkel asked, peering through the snow. “Frigg’s foot! I think it’s Princess Reynilda.”
“Who is Princess Reynilda?” Andrea asked.
“The horniest maid in all of Hordaland,” Cnut remarked.
“Who used to be betrothed to Cnut,” Thorkel noted with a chuckle.
Cnut gave Thorkel a dirty look and said, “I thought she married Jarl Esgar.”
“She did, but he died recently. Some say from too much bedsport,” Girda contributed. “She better not be havin’ sex in me scullery like she did last time.”
“Who was she having sex with in the scullery?” Andrea asked with narrowed eyes.
“Yea, who?” asked Dyna, who’d just come up beside them.
“Not me!” Cnut and Thorkel both said at the same time.
“I suspect this is going to be a very interesting yule season,” Cnut said, putting his arm around Andrea’s shoulders.
“Hmm,” Andrea said, shrugging away as she tried to get a better look at Reynilda, who was being helped down from her seat on the wagon sledge. Then Andrea muttered, “Oh shit!”
Reynilda was stunning, no doubt about it. She wore a red cloak lined with white ermine. Her black curls emerged from the hood, which was also trimmed with the precious fur, framing a perfect heart-shaped face. She was beautiful, no doubt about it. Red Riding Hood in a bustier, so to speak. And devious as the Big Bad Wolf.
“Cnut! Beloved!” the woman said, opening her arms as she rushed toward him.
Beloved? What a load of you-know-what! He was the one who said, “Oh shit!” then. And he had no choice but to open his arms, too, for a welcome embrace.
When he glanced back, he saw that Andrea was gone.
That night, during his homecoming feast, Reynilda sat on his left side at the high table, chattering away inanely, as if they were still betrothed, touching his sleeve, batting her eyelashes as if in a sudden dust storm. And Andrea was missing. Cnut couldn’t help but notice that there were no honey-glazed doughnuts. And he didn’t tingle. Not one bit.
Later, he slept alone in the guest bedchamber from which Andrea was also missing. When it became clear she was not joining him, and he wasn’t about to embarrass himself by hunting for her, he put a bar across the door.
Women! Would he ever figure them out?
Not even in a thousand years, a voice in his head said. He was probably talking to himself.
There are red-eyed Lucipire monsters, and then there are green-eyed monsters. Both formidable creatures . . .
Andrea was so angry, she could spit, and so jealous, she could spit green. From the get-go, the lovely Reynilda drove her, and everyone else, bonkers.
On the surface, she was all sweetness and innocence, but a cunning brain worked behind those baby blue eyes. Andrea would bet her favorite frosting spatula on that.
“You don’t mind if I take your bedchamber, do you, Cnut? It’s the biggest, and I have so many garments.”
Cnut hadn’t said anything, so Andrea had proceeded up the stairs and removed her own belongings, scant as they were.
The designing Reynilda’s sly eyes had taken note of the fact that Andrea had been sharing Cnut’s bed and she said, all honeyed innocence, “Andrea . . . that is your name isn’t it? How quaint? Would you please unpack my bags, and be careful of the gold-threaded robe? The threads have a tendency to break. Oh, you’re not a servant? So sorry. Tee hee hee! What are you, exactly?”
Cnut (suddenly deaf and dumb) hadn’t uttered a word, so Andrea had said, “A cook.”
“Good. Make sure there are no turnips or anything made with turnips at the high table for the yule feast tomorrow night. You are having a feast, I hope, since this is the first night of winter solstice. Neeps give me a rash.”
Once again, Cnut the Mu
te hadn’t said anything, even though Andrea had rolled her eyes at him.
Girda had spoken up, though, “Rash my arse.”
“Be nice, Girda,” Cnut had warned.
Now the idiot chooses to talk!
Andrea, Dyna, and Girda all exchanged looks. You could be sure there would be turnips buried in something on the Jól table, maybe in everything.
Needless to say, Andrea found a sleep closet to lay her head down that night. She didn’t sleep much, though. Instead of counting sheep, she was counting fifty ways to kill a lover.
The next morning, the entire castle was in a flurry of activity preparing for the evening’s festivities, which were going to include a wedding between Thorkel and Dyna. Andrea decided to raid Cnut’s treasure room once again to get some fabric to make Dyna a wedding gown. She took Dyna with her. They found some lovely pale blue wool that was so soft it almost felt like silk. There was also some white linen for the apron, with gold braiding for trim. Several of the servants proficient with needle and thread were going to do a rush job for the garment. Dyna was so overcome with gratitude that tears welled in her eyes. “Thank you, m’lady. Thank you. Thank you. Ever since you have come to Hoggstead, things have been better. You must be our good luck token.”
I don’t know about that, Andrea thought. She didn’t feel very lucky herself, not after a sleepless night and a vivid imagination about what Cnut might have been doing above stairs. He certainly hadn’t come looking for her.
She sent Dyna on her way and was about to lock the door and return the key to Finn, who was no doubt having a heart attack somewhere or predicting that Cnut would, when she noticed an emerald-green, already made gown. It was not in the Norse style, more tapered on top, with long sleeves and a rounded neck. Very plain but very Christmasy in color. It was much too big for her, but maybe with a belt . . . She threw it over her arm and emerged from the treasure room and was locking up when she saw Cnut and Reynilda come out of the two bedchambers. Separately.
No time to feel elated over that. Reynilda hadn’t noticed her yet, but Cnut had.
“Good morn, Jarl Sigurdsson. Didst sleep well?” Reynilda cooed.
“Very well. And you?”
“Like a newborn babe. But I am famished now. Dost think your cook Andrea could make me some porridge with butter and sweet cream?”
“I don’t know. What do you say, Andrea?” Cnut looked directly at her and winked.
Reynilda swiveled around to see Andrea standing a short distance away, leaning against the closed treasure room door. Her eyes took in both the large key in Andrea’s hand and the gown over her arm. Though her eyebrows arched with surprise, she didn’t remark on the items.
“I’m sure I could whip up some gruel for you, Princess Reynilda.”
Reynilda nodded and turned her back on Andrea, as if she were of no importance. Instead, she spoke to Cnut, “How handsome you look today! Your housecarl Farle told us at Storm’s Lair what a change there was in your appearance, and I just had to come and see. Not that you weren’t handsome before.”
Should I gag now or later?
“I was sooo distraught when my father forced me to marry Esgar.” She batted her eyelashes at Cnut.
Oh Lord! The batting eyelash gimmick. And men fall for it every time! I never did master the art. Celie, on the other hand, could flutter her lashes like butterflies. Celie! Oh my God! I haven’t thought about Celie all day, or last night. What if . . . no, not now!
Reynilda, after whispering to one of the maids who’d just come out of the bedchamber carrying a huge pile of laundry, swanned off like queen of the castle, making her way to the garderobe. Andrea hoped it smelled particularly bad today.
Once Reynilda left, Cnut turned to Andrea, grabbed her by the wrist of her free hand, and yanked her into the spare bedchamber, and had her backed up against the wall before she could even blink. The key and the gown dropped to the rush-covered floor. “I waited for you last night, Andrea love,” he murmured against her neck, licking the sensitive skin there, causing her to shiver.
I waited for you, too. But you never came looking for me. She kept her lips pressed tightly together to keep from speaking those words aloud. He wasn’t getting off so easily.
“Are you cold?” he asked, leaning his head back but keeping her pinned with his hands and body.
“Of course I’m cold,” she said. “It’s freezing in here.”
It was cold, the small hearth fire having burned out, but that wasn’t what caused her goose bumps. It was the Tinglemaster himself, and he knew it, too.
He grinned and gave her a quick kiss, probably sensing that she would bite him if he stayed too close or too long. And not a sexy biting, either.
“I know a way to warm you quick.” He glanced pointedly at the unmade bed.
“Not a chance!” But she was tempted.
“I don’t understand why you’re so angry, Andrea.” The coaxing tone of his voice was belied by the firm hold he had on her buttocks.
“Reynilda.” That one word said it all, or should. She tried to shove his hands away, but they just landed on other forbidden spots. Her breasts. And traitorous critters that they were, they rose and purled like needy kittens up for a petting.
“What about her?”
At first, she wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so distracted was she by the massaging of his hands. Then she shoved his hands off her and held them away from her body, staring at him with disbelief. “A fiancée? You failed to mention that you were engaged.”
“Past tense,” he emphasized. “’Twas of no importance.”
Not important! How like a man! But I can’t let him think it matters. Instead, she homed in on something else. “’Twas? ’Twas? You’re turning into a bloody Viking.”
“I was always a bloody Viking, sweetling.”
Don’t I know it? Don’t I love it? No, I don’t. Vikings are vain and arrogant and vicious and, damn, he’s playing the sweetling card. He knows it makes me tingle. “Aaarrgh!”
“You’re jealous,” he said, and grinned.
“Idiot!” She smacked him.
“I love when you call me an idiot. ’Tis like an endearment.”
She didn’t smile.
“Listen, my love, Reynilda has a selective memory. She fails to recall the details of our short betrothal. It wasn’t her father who rejected me. She herself did. In fact, she’d called me a ‘fat toad,’ and swore she would share her bed furs with me when pond scum turned to gold.”
“I agree. You are a toad,” she said huffily, though her lips twitched with humor. “How does she get to be a princess?”
“Her father, Agmundr of Lade, was a minor king here in the Norselands. Truth to tell, any chieftain, or jarl of some standing, can call himself king in these times. Technically, she was no longer a princess once she married Jarl Esgar of Storm’s Lair, which is west of Hoggstead, but many miles north of Lade. But I for one don’t intend to challenge her right to do so. It matters not to me if she wants to name herself Queen of the North.”
Andrea felt a little better knowing Reynilda’s background. In other words, she was a pretentious, self-serving bitch.
“Reynilda is up to something and it isn’t my superior appearance that draws her here in the middle of winter,” Cnut continued.
“At least you’re smart enough to realize that,” Andrea said, then added immediately, “not that your appearance isn’t enough to make a saint drop her drawers.”
“You do have a way with words,” Cnut said, not for the first time. “The only drawers I’m interested in seeing are yours.” He pinched her butt for emphasis.
“So you say!” she said with a sniff, but she was pleased.
“We have to be careful, though,” Cnut warned. “Reynilda brought a pigload of food and supplies with her. Enough that our worries over Hoggstead’s immediate woes may very well be ended now that our larder is nearly full. We . . . I . . . owe her.”
Uh-oh! “Ah, but what is her
price?”
“Precisely. And more important, why does she smell like a rank lemon?”
“She does?” That was the characteristic of a really evil person, according to what Cnut had told her previously. Good Lord, I’m starting to believe all this stuff.
He nodded. “And so do the half dozen men and women in the entourage she brought with her.”
“You need to talk with Farle. Find out what he saw or heard at Storm’s Lair.”
“I will, but there are more important things we need to do first.”
“Such as?” If he suggests that I go make breakfast for the woman, he has another think coming.
“Wouldst care to explore yon pond with me, m’lady?” he asked, making a motion with his head toward the bed. “Methinks it needs some scum.”
“You being the toad, I presume.”
“Ribbit, ribbit.”
She laughed.
“I give good wart,” he promised.
And he did.
There was a whole lot of tingling going on in the pond for the next half hour until there was a pounding on the door with a harried Finn calling out, “You must come quickly, master. Girda and Princess Reynilda are going at each other like cats in heat.”
Chapter 19
A YULETIDE FEAST
3 wild boars, 2 spit roasted, 1 ember-baked
10 venison rumps
Bear shanks slow-cooked in beer (with turnips)
Pig ribs in sauerkraut-onion broth
Eels in skyr sauce
Pickled pigs’ feet
Oat-stuffed pike (with turnip)
Trout in garlic butter
Herring pies
Heart and gizzard medley (deer, rabbit, grouse, squirrel)
Shredded cabbage in gelled marrow (with turnip)