“Tyra mentioned a ‘pleasure journey,’ ” Adam said.
“And you thought we swanned off like feckless maidens?”
He nodded.
Idiot!
’Twas true Drifa had not wanted to draw attention to the mission she and her sisters had taken upon themselves, but she should have known better than to leave their menfolk in the dark. Men could not find their way in a fog, let alone the dark.
Once Finn had informed them of Sidroc’s need to rescue his baby, Drifa and her sisters grew outraged. In a family of five daughters, how could they not disdain a man like Jarl Ormsson who placed no value on a girl child? And so they decided to swoop into Vikstead and grab the baby. Bring it back to Stoneheim, where Sidroc would be overjoyed once he awakened to find the babe safe and sound.
But then they’d decided to go to Birka before returning home, to put any Vikstead followers off their scent, if there were in fact any who cared that the child was gone. They’d renamed the girling from Signe to Runa, as a precaution.
None of this was done with the intention of her marrying the lout. But she did feel guilty for having struck him down, as deserving as her blow had been. And besides, what had the fool been thinking, keeping this information from a potential wife? How little he must have valued her to think she would let a baby die for lack of a husband’s love. In truth, she probably would not have agreed to wed him if she’d known his motive, but she would have worked with him to save the child.
“But . . . but now I have his baby, and he is not here.” Drifa wrung her hands with dismay.
“You have his baby?” her father asked gleefully, as if the squalling infant off in an adjoining chamber with the wet nurse was not announcing her presence to one and all. “Now you will have to marry, for sure.”
“It is not my baby, Father. Even I could not plant a seed and have it flower in six short sennights.”
Her father waved a hand dismissively. “His baby then. It matters not. If you have his baby, he will insist on marriage.”
“You forget, Father, it is also Jarl Ormsson’s granddaughter.”
“Uh-oh!” the three men in the room said as one.
“That Gunter Ormsson is a mean buzzard. Good gods, we will have all the Vikstead warriors attacking us now,” Rafn said.
“Why would the man attack us when the jarl did not want the baby to live?” Drifa asked.
Rafn shook his head at her. “Drifa, Drifa, Drifa, you do not understand men.”
Well, that was obvious.
“A man may not want something for himself, but he will fight to the death to hold that something if someone else wants it,” Rafn explained.
“That is pure male drivel.”
“Plus, pride may be involved, if Gunter thinks his honor is involved,” Adam added.
“The man has no honor,” she said hotly.
The three men in the room just shrugged.
“Well, that settles it then. Return the baby to Vikstead,” her father said on a long sigh, his hopes for the marriage of his last daughter being dashed.
“I cannot do that. Ormsson plans to kill the baby,” Drifa told him.
The king put fingertips to his forehead and rubbed. “All this thinking is giving me a head megrim.” He turned to Adam. “Dost think I need another head drilling?”
“Nay. What I think you need . . . what I think we all need is,” Adam said with an exaggerated pause, “a beer.”
Soon she stood alone in the solar, wondering how she’d gotten herself into such a mess. This was almost as bad as the time she and her sisters had killed the earl of Havenshire and buried the brute in the bottom of a privy. Except now she was stuck with the evidence of her crime. Living, breathing, squalling evidence.
Just then, Rafn stuck his head back in the doorway and grinned at her. “Sidroc did have a message of sorts regarding you afore he left.”
She arched her brows at his mischievous expression.
“He said, ‘Bugger the bitch!’ ”
Drifa threw a ball of yarn at his retreating back.
Oh well. She was sure to find Sidroc soon and he would joyfully take the baby off her hands.
Oddly, she could swear she heard laughter in her head. Was it the Norns of Fate making mirth at her destiny?
Mayhap she was the one needing a head drilling.
On the other hand, mayhap not. One of her body parts might enlarge, or she might grow one she did not want.
Chapter Three
Five years later, on the way to Byzantium
There are passions, and then there are passions . . .
“Wake up, princess. Time to smell the roses. Ha, ha, ha!”
Princess Drifa turned over on her pallet under the canvas shelter in the center of the longship, and pretended to be napping.
“I smell flowers. Does anyone else smell flowers? Ha, ha, ha!”
Do not react, Drifa. Do not react.
“Mayhap it is your armpits, Arne. Seems to me I saw grass growing there. Ha, ha, ha!”
Oh, good gods! You’d think they were youthlings, not grown men.
“I for one plan to plow a few fields once we land, and I don’t mean grass. Ha, ha, ha!”
We have been too long asea if that crudity passes for humor.
“My wife has a garden. Betimes she likes me to till it for her . . . with me hoe. Ha, ha, ha!”
Yea, way too long.
“You are so full of shit, but then manure is good for the soil. Ha, ha, ha!”
Do they think I will be shocked by their coarseness? If they only knew, I have heard far worse. Drifa had been raised in a keep of fighting men, ofttimes two hundred warriors in residence at one time. It was not the first time she had heard that word.
“When my lily blooms, it wants naught but a wet furrow to rest in. Ha, ha, ha!”
I have seen your lily, Otto, and it is naught to brag about.
“Someone best tell the princess to get up off her flower bed and come see what is on the horizon.”
It did not matter that the seamen made mock of her with their floral jests. Better that than toss her overboard as had been threatened more than once when they’d been hit with one misery after another and the food supply had dwindled down to the hated lutefisk.
In their defense—not that they needed defending—although Njord, the god of the seas, had been kind to them with good weather, it had been a long, tiresome journey from the Norselands to Constantinople, or the city the Vikings called Miklagard, Great City. They had come by way of the Dneipr, where they’d had to weather sea storms, cataracts, sandbanks, and treacherous shoal waters. Not all the waterways were connected and portage had been necessary on occasion, requiring the seamen to carry the longships overland on their shoulders.
Also, in their defense, this was a trip that had been forced on them. They resented Drifa mightily.
She must have dozed off then because next she was aware there was a leather-clad toe nudging her hip. Glancing up sleepily, she saw Wulfgar of Wessex, commander of the small fleet, including her own Wind Maiden; he was one of the few Saxons aboard. “We are almost there, Princess Drifa,” he announced in his usual dour way.
“Really? Truly?”
“Really. Truly.” His voice reeked with sarcasm as he turned abruptly and walked away.
The grump!
Rising, she straightened her hair that lay in one long braid down her back and fluffed out her gown. And then she gasped at what she saw.
The sun was about to set as the four longship prow heads of fierce dragon, wolf, raven, and bear plowed through the rolling waves approaching Constantinople. The Golden City certainly earned its name this day as its onion domes and fanciful turrets, marbled facades and mosaic tiles sparkled like vibrant jewels.
And the gardens! Ah! Even from this distance, she could see that the vibrant colors of the terraced gardens added to the aura of precious stones.
For Drifa, who loved flowers, this journey was a long-held dream come to fr
uition. In fact, she’d been obsessed with plants from an early age. And where better to study them than the Imperial Gardens of Miklagard.
The specially made chest she carried with her everywhere contained sharpened quills, brushes made of silky sable and camel hair, and hundreds of parchment sheets displaying drawings of plants, listing their origins and characteristics. An expensive pastime, for a certainty, considering the rarity of parchment, except for that allotted the monk scribe illuminators, but then she had an immense dowry just sitting there these twenty and nine years. Leastways, that was how she justified her passion to her father and four married sisters.
Not that she hadn’t been tempted to follow the path of most normal women. There had been that one man, of course. Sidroc of Vikstead. But, nay, she had forgotten about him long ago, or she tried to, which was nigh impossible with his daughter Runa prancing about Stoneheim like a young lamb. Drifa had to smile just thinking about the little imp and how she had ingrained herself in the hearts of all of them. Her only regret about this journey was how much she would miss the little dearling.
By some strange quirk of fate, the Norns of Fate no doubt, Drifa had gotten herself involved with the abduction of Sidroc’s daughter. With good intentions, she’d brought the baby back to Stoneheim where Sidroc should have still been lying unconscious from her blow to his fool head, but, lo and behold, the dunderhead had gone, his whereabouts still unknown. He was dead for all she knew.
She had mixed feelings about that. She wanted Sidroc to be found, still living. Of course she did, though the prospects of that were dim after five years. But a true mother could not love Runa more. In fact, the child called Drifa Mother, despite Drifa’s initial corrections. Above all else, Drifa feared that Sidroc, if he was alive, might take Runa away. Why would he not?
No one, other than her sisters, knew of the child’s origins. Most folks just assumed Runa was an orphan child Drifa had adopted. Most of all, Drifa worried that Jarl Ormsson might discover the whereabouts of the child and make her a slave, just for spite.
She called herself back to the present with a shake of her head to clear it of unwelcome what-might-have-beens.
Unlike her, many of the sailors, mostly Vikings, had traveled to the wondrous capital of the Byzantine empire afore, some having served in the emperor’s elite troop of Norsemen, the Varangian Guard. Still, this sight on arrival must surely amaze even their hardened souls. It would be a work of art if it could ever be conveyed to canvas.
She went over to the rail next to Wulf. “Sorry I am if I am responsible for your ill-temper.”
“ ’Tis not you. Well, not you entirely,” he added with an unapologetic lack of grace. “I have been listening to the complaints and inane jests of not just two hundred seamen but my fellow hersirs since we left the Norselands three sennights ago.” He motioned with his head toward the two well-dressed men on his other side. Hersirs were commanders of troops in their own right.
One of them, Jamie the Scots Viking, spoke up now. “Salt air gives me a rash, Wulf. I canna stop itching. A bath would be welcome to me braw body.” Jamie’s deep, rolling brogue was known to cause women to melt, according to his own assessment, and men to cringe . . . like fingernails scraping on a rock.
“I was going to tell you about that. Your braw body is ripe, m’friend,” offered Thork Tykirsson of Dragonstead, the most untamed, outrageous Viking ever born to ride a longship. Thork pinched his nose as he spoke, giving his voice a nasal whine.
Jamie elbowed Thork, who elbowed him back. This went on for several long minutes. You’d think they were youthlings instead of grown men of twenty and more who happened to be seasoned warriors. Her father would not have entrusted her to their care if they were not. When her eyes connected with Wulf’s, she could tell that he was thinking the selfsame thing.
But then Alrek, another Viking hersir, tripped over a coil of rope and got thrown betwixt the two dumb dolts at the ship’s rail. The young man was not known as Alrek the Clumsy for naught. Luckily his sword was still in its scabbard and he had not stabbed himself in the leg, as he’d done more than once in the past. Or worse, had launched himself over the rail into the Sea of Marmosa. Drifa’s sister Tyra, a woman warrior, had trained Alrek herself, and had scars to show for it.
Ignoring Wulf’s continuing glower, Drifa said, more to herself than anyone else, “I cannot wait to see the Imperial Gardens.”
“Huh?” Alrek said after straightening. “Me, I want to go to the chariot races at the Hippodrome. I heard they have teams of four colors who compete against each other for grand prizes. Gold coins usually, but betimes a solid silver helmet. Mayhap I could enter a race, though I have no use for a solid silver helmet. Mayhap it could be melted down.”
Alrek’s words seemed to stun them all. Alrek on a chariot with spiked wheels was a horrifying prospect.
“Och! I prefer to watch the dancing girls in the Pleasure Palace. ’Tis a fact, fair maidens, no matter the country, like to see what I wear under me pladd. Not you, of course, m’lady.” This from Jamie, of course, who winked at her with mischief in his dancing eyes. He wore the traditional léine and brat—the léine being a saffron-colored shert that hung down to his knees, leaving bare his hairy legs, and the brat or pladd, which could only be described as a blanket attached at the shoulder like a mantle and wrapped around his body, leaving his sword arm free. It was secured with a thick leather belt around his narrow waist. Quite a sight! Especially when he now flicked up the back of the strange Highland garment to demonstrate, thus exposing the hard globes of his buttocks to the rowers who sat on their sea chests along both sides of the ship. Not to her, of course, but to everyone else.
While the crew burst out in laughter, and Wulf was still muttering about the reference to “fair maidens” in a “Pleasure Palace,” Thork put in his two pence. “Forget dancing. ’Tis other body activity I have a yen for.”
“A yen?” Jamie hooted. “Doona be daft, man. ’Tis more like a full-blown, goat-worthy lust.”
“Goat? What goat?” Alrek wanted to know.
“Bloody hell! Have you men no sense, speaking so coarsely in front of the king’s daughter?” Wulf chastised the lot.
The three hersirs ducked their heads and mumbled their apologies.
Addressing Drifa, Wulf said, “I have ten years on these lackwits, but betimes it feels like fifty.”
It was true that Wulf appeared much more serious than the others, but she knew that they shared a hatred for the Saxon king Edgar, fed by a long list of personal injustices and downright crimes. Rumor was that they had sworn a blood vow two years ago to make the monarch’s life as miserable as possible, which they did by acting as outlaws on land and pirates on sea, doing whatever they could, barring murder, to harass the king.
Still addressing her, Wulf added, “We can spend three days here, at most, if we want to intercept any of the royal shipments being sent for Edgar’s coronation.” Wulf spoke freely to her of their “illegal” acts because he knew that her father supported him wholeheartedly.
“Coronation! Pfff!” exclaimed Jamie. “The scoundrel has been king for more than ten years now. Why he needs a crowning at this point is beyond my ken.”
“Money, pure and simple,” Thork proclaimed. “It always comes down to more coin and treasure for the royal coffers, which give him more power to continue with his brutal acts.”
“Actually, he could not be crowned afore now. ’Twas a penance handed down by Archbishop Dunstan for one of Edgar’s many lecherous sins. No crown on his head for ten years. Plus he picked a time when all the rulers of surrounding countries could come pay him homage . . . or else.” Alrek might be clumsy but he had a sharp head on his shoulders, in Drifa’s opinion.
“I wish my penances were so simple. I would gladly go without a crown . . . or a hat for a few years,” Thork complained. “One little lecherous act and my family has exiled me ’til I get my life in order.”
Many sets of eyes turned on him.
&
nbsp; “All right. Several lecherous acts.”
“We can attack Edgar where it hurts, but only if we are in time to waylay some of those emissaries.” Wulf was back on the subject of his continuing gripe.
Drifa felt her face bloom with color. “This side trip to deliver me to Miklagard was not a side trip at all, I am well aware, but I had no idea how long it would take. It has caused you a huge delay.”
She suspected that her father had issued a request that was more like a threat. Not quite “Do this or die,” but close. “It is always good policy to have friends in high places,” she asserted defensively.
“Me . . . I prefer friends in low places,” Thork said, “if you get my meaning.” He waggled his eyebrows at her with exaggerated licentiousness.
Wulf took her by the elbow and steered her away from the others. “It’s not too late, Drifa.”
Drifa was not offended by Wulf’s using her name in such a familiar fashion. She’d known Wulf ever since her sister Breanne married his best friend, Caedmon. Although he’d only been to Stoneheim this one time, and then just to pick her up, she’d met him on occasion in the Saxon lands at family gatherings.
“I worry about abandoning you in the middle of that snake pit court in the Golden City.”
“You aren’t abandoning me.”
“Regardless of whether you are there by choice or not, you are ill-prepared for the atmosphere of corruption.”
“Wulf,” she said, as if he were a youthling she was about to lecture, “all courts are like that, whether they be Saxon, Norse, Arab, or Byzantine.”
“Your own sister Tyra was kidnapped whilst here years ago.”
“That was under a different emperor.”
Wulf threw up his hands in frustration. “I don’t know what your father was thinking.”
“He sent four of his trusted warriors to guard me. Do not worry. Once I have completed my studies, I will go home.” My father has ensured that. Did he not make me promise that in return for this boon, I would wed on my return? Gods only know what prospects he will gather this time! In truth, he has run out of prospects. Still, I should wed and provide a real home for Runa. ’Tis time. “Believe me, Wulf, come winter I will be home.”