The Reluctant Viking Page 21

  Noticing Tykir and Tyra at the edge of the family gathering, Ruby sang "Jingle Bells," delighting them with the raucous carol, as well as her explanation of Christmas in her country. She'd been unable to think of any children's songs on the trip to Dar's home, but now she remembered the words to one folk song she thought they'd like, "Puff, the Magic Dragon." Did Vikings have sagas dealing with dragons? Ruby wondered. Somehow, the image fit.

  Thork continued to glower like an old bear.

  So Ruby told the story of "The Three Bears." Then she couldn't resist, probably some innate death wish, and told "Thork and the Beanstalk," to Thork's consternation. He probably restrained himself from violence because of the two dozen enthralled family members and hesirs gathered around Ruby. Even an uncharacteristically subdued Linette had come up to stand behind Thork's chair, unable to resist the charm of Ruby's stories and songs.

  When Eddie and David had been small, she and Jack had sat like this with them in front of the fireplace, telling stories and singing songs. She'd forgotten the joy of those simple family evenings together, long before Jack stayed later and later at his office, way before she began bringing work home at night. They hadn't had much then—materially, that is—but, oh, how much richer their lives had been!

  Tears of sweet memory—and regret—filled Ruby's eyes and she told her rapt audience huskily, "This was my husband Jack's favorite song."

  Strumming the lute in her hands lightly, Ruby began the song, "Help Me Make It Through the Night." When she got to the stanza where the man asks the woman to lay her head down by his side, Thork stood rudely and walked away. Linette ran after him.

  Everyone stared after Thork in surprise, but Ruby continued with her song, even though tears turned her voice raspy. At the end, she happened to glance at Dar. He beamed like a bloody moon.

  * * *

  The next morning, guests began arriving early. The benches built into the side walls of the great hall would serve as pallets for most of the men. Servants would be bumped to the floor or to the stables and outbuildings.

  Everyone squeezed together to make room for extra people. Even Olaf's and Gyda's girls had to move in with them, and the girls' chamber was given over to a visiting jarl and his wife from beyond Northumbria. Luckily, Ruby's small tower chamber was too small to accommodate anyone else.

  In the hustle and bustle that overtook the keep that day, everyone ignored Ruby, even at the evening meal where she sat so low at the tables she was practically out the doors. Not that she minded. Her safety lay in being inconspicuous.

  Aud served a simple meal that night to the tired guests. Afterward, a skald told poignant sagas of noble Viking deeds. Ruby knew that these oral traditions would be the vehicles to carry the history of these fanciful people to modern times and that some would be lost forever, never being committed to paper. She vowed to search the next day for the skald to have him repeat for her one epic poem she found particularly moving. It involved two hostile half-brothers, Hloth and Angantyr, who both claimed their dead father's kingship. In the end, Angantyr searched the battlefield for his dead brother, saying:

  "...Untold arm rings I offered thee, brother, a wealth of gold and what most thou didst wish.

  As guerdon for strife now hast gotten neither, nor lands nor lieges nor lustrous rings.

  A baleful fate wrought it that, brother I slew thee! Will that aye be told..."

  In listening to the poem, Ruby marveled that these primitive people could express themselves so sensitively. And she thought of Thork and his brother Eric, realizing that, like Hloth and Angantyr, they would never have the warm sibling relationship two brothers should have.

  Aud was in her element the next morning as she directed the bustling activities in the kitchen. Gyda worked busily at her side, arranging meals for the day, including a sumptuous banquet for the evening.

  A steady stream of servants, including a grumbling Ella, marched to the various chambers with linens and bowls of fresh water for the guests. The men had left before first light on a short hunting expedition to kill fresh game to supplement the usual fish and poultry fare. Some of the male thralls already returned with the first of the kill—a brace of rabbits, two deer and several wild grouse.

  "Ruby, would you go with Vigi and collect some fresh mushrooms for dinner?" Aud asked.

  "Of course." Ruby was glad to be of help and to keep busy. "Shall we pick some blueberries, too? They would be good with fresh cream or baked in a pastry." Aud's eyes lit up at that suggestion, and they exchanged ideas on how best to make a flaky crust for the dessert.

  Before she left, Ruby invited Tykir and Tyra to join her, taking linens and soap with her, figuring they may as well combine her errand and a bath. Ruby saw several of Dar's and Aud's distinguished guests eye her T-shirt and jeans with cool curiosity.

  When their baskets were full, Tykir and Tyra waded merrily near the edge of the pond. Later, Ruby told the children to go play near Vigi at the edge of the clearing so she could bathe in private. Before they left, she asked Vigi if she could borrow the eating knife he always carried at his waist.

  "Why?" he asked suspiciously.

  "Oh, really! It's not as if I could disarm you. You still have your sword. I just want to shave my legs, for heaven's sake! I'm beginning to feel like a porcupine."

  Vigi's eyes widened in surprise. Ruby knew he already considered her half-crazy. He handed the knife to her, though, admonishing her to give it right back. He probably already rehearsed in his mind the fun he'd have back at the keep telling of this weird stranger's latest antics.

  Tykir and Tyra thought it a great joke that Ruby had whiskers on her legs just like their fathers had on their faces. They asked her to lift her pant leg so they could touch them.

  " 'Tis like the bristles on a hog's skin afore the butchering," Tykir declared in amazement. Tyra fell over in exaggerated glee at his words.

  When she finished bathing and shaving her legs with soap lather and Vigi's razor-sharp knife, nicking herself only a few times, the children asked to touch her legs again. Their mouths formed little "o's" of surprise at the smoothness.

  After she'd helped Aud and Gyda prepare the blueberry pastries, Ruby went to her room where Ella was laying out a lovely dress.

  " 'Tis a gift from the master and mistress for yer storytelling yestereve," Ella explained.

  Heavy gold braiding edged the hem, wrists and neckline of the simple burgundy silk dress, whose soft fabric molded her breasts and outlined her narrow waist, held in tightly by a gold braided belt. When she walked, the dress followed the lines of her narrow hips and long legs. Other than her lingerie, Ruby wore only a thin chemise, loving the feel of the sensuous cloth against her skin.

  But Ruby went unnoticed, or so she thought, in the noise and bustle of the banquet room. Still exiled to the end of the room, Ruby was pleased to see that Linette had been bumped from the dais for the many visiting high-born Vikings. Many would go on to Jorvik and Sigtrygg's castle the next day, while others would wait until next week to travel with Dar and his family to the Althing. Everywhere the crowd buzzed with news of Sigtrygg's upcoming wedding.

  Ruby's heart lurched, though, when she saw the young woman sitting next to Thork at the head table. Her long chestnut hair hung past her shoulders, held in place by a gold circlet around her forehead. No more than fifteen years old, she seemed to answer Thork's questions shyly, averting her eyes from his direct stare, then darting interested glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking.

  It had to be the Saxon-Viking maid Elise that Dar wanted for Thork. Elise's father, whose lands adjoined Dar's, sat on one side of Dar, his wife on the other.

  In disgust, Ruby took a hefty swig of the hearty Viking ale and choked. It was odious.

  "Tastes like horse piss, does it not?" a young pimply-faced hesir whined next to her. "The best wine and mead go to the upper tables."

  Ruby put her elbow on the table, holding up her chin, and wondered what else could go wrong. First
Linette, now this beautiful young girl. Ruby watched painfully as Thork cut a prime piece of meat off the platter he shared with the girl and handed it to her considerately. She smiled sweetly at him in thanks.

  Ruby thought she would puke.

  Ella walked by with a tray of bannock, and Ruby stopped her. "Do you think you could bring me some wine?"

  "Needin' ta drown yer sorrows, are ya?" she said, cocking her head toward the dais, but she returned shortly with a small jug which she'd hidden in her skirts.

  "Do not let anyone see this," Ella said, sliding it under the bench at Ruby's feet. " 'Tis from Dar's private Frisian stock."

  Surreptitiously Ruby reached under the table, dumped her ale in the rushes and filled her cup with the red wine. Her hesir companion looked at her oddly, wondering aloud what she did down in the rushes, but she glared him into silence.

  The first cup went straight to Ruby's head, out to her fingertips and down to her toes. She sipped her second cup more slowly, only gulping larger mouthfuls when she saw Thork doing something particularly distasteful, like touching the girl's sleeve gently when he asked a question or whispering in her ear when the noise level in the room got too loud. He ignored Ruby totally.

  It was a futile battle, trying to get Thork to marry her, Ruby told herself in self-pity as she finished her second cup, touching her lips in wonder. How did her lips get numb? And her eyelashes felt as if they weighed ten pounds each. But, Lord, she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this good.

  As the tables were dismantled and people milled about in groups, waiting for the entertainment, she poured her third drink, feeling a drunken rush of self-confidence. Maybe it wasn't hopeless, after all. Maybe she should go right up there and demand that Thork marry her. Better yet, maybe she should get a sword and kidnap Thork. Lock him in her room with her for a week, and, guaran-teed, she'd get a proposal from him or he'd be dead from sexual depletion. She giggled at the thought, getting the attention of her young hesir, who also stood alone.

  "Why, you had wine the whole time!" he complained, noticing the jug at her feet. "What a pig to keep it all to yourself!"

  "Not a pig. A hog. I have legs like a hog's skin, don't you know? Before the butchering." She giggled again, then hiccuped. After handing the young man the almost empty container, she weaved her way through the crowd toward the head of the hall, her half-empty cup of wine held shakily in front of her.

  Dar and all his noble visitors had moved off the dais and were sitting or standing, listening to two young women with harp and lute who sang a soft melody. Ruby got her first close-up look at Thork and choked back her laughter. He wore a burgundy velvet tunic with gold braiding, almost identical to her dress—Dar's idea of a practical joke, she presumed. Wide gold bracelets gleamed on his tanned upper arms, and a gold pendant on a heavy chain lay against his chest. The hair on one side of his head had been braided and hung off the side of his head and down his back, highlighting the one thunderbolt earring.

  He looks like a bloody Norse god, Ruby thoUght, and gulped.

  Thork blinked with surprise at their matching clothing, then curled his lips with disgust. He shot an accusing glance at his grandfather who feigned innocence with a shrug. Then Thork stared pointedly at the wine Ruby still sipped as she leaned tipsily against the back of someone's chair. Anger flashed in his eyes as she raised defiant eyes to his. Thork stood and started to walk purposefully toward her, but Ruby slipped into the crowd and moved to the other side of the room.

  When a visiting jarl rose from his chair to go to the garderobe, Ruby sank wearily into it, holding her chin in her hand. Dar gave her a disapproving look, but Ruby ignored the unspoken message that she was not high enough in their stupid class system to be sitting where she was.

  Thork stood directly across the circle from her, glaring. Having had enough of his anger and rebuffs and orders, Ruby stuck her tongue out at him and thought his eyes would bug out. It felt so good she did it again and tried to look cross-eyed at him, but for some reason her coordination was bogged down, and her eyes just kind of rolled. But she'd succeeded in turning Thork's face almost purple by now. He would have vaulted the circle of guests if the skald hadn't started a long lyric poem.

  Under normal circumstances, Ruby might have been interested, but she felt as if she were floating now—a glorious feeling! She let her empty wine cup slip from her fingers to the rushes.

  The skaldic poem ended with a story about some Viking and his precious knife called Fealty and how it had saved him in some battle. "Good Lord! Only a Viking would name a knife, like a pet," Ruby muttered, and the Viking seated next to her shot her an annoyed frown.

  Everyone congratulated the skald after he finished, asking him questions. In the short lull that followed, one woman guest talked cattily to Aud in a voice loud enough for many around her to hear.

  "I understand your guest from Ivar—the one of the mannish clothing—has a most unusual manner of using a knife."

  Everyone looked at Ruby. Aud and Dar raised questioning eyes to her. Thork looked as if he would have an apoplectic fit. Well, at least she'd finally piqued his interest.

  Ruby blinked and then hiccuped loudly. She heard Dar guffaw.

  The woman went on with relish, "She shaved her legs today with a knife."

  Again, everybody looked at Ruby in astonishment.

  " 'Tis true, Ruby?" Aud gasped.

  "Where did the thrall get a knife?" Dar wanted to know.

  "I will kill you," Thork mouthed silently.

  With as much dignity as she could maintain in her inebriated condition, Ruby explained, "It's no big deal. Really. Women in my country shave their legs all the time. And their underarms. It's considered unfeminine not to do so."

  They all gawked at her in disbelief. Several elderly matrons seemed about to have a stroke over the scandalous conversation.

  Oh, hell! She was in deep trouble as it was. She might as well enjoy herself. Besides, she still wanted to get back at Thork for abandoning her the other night to be with Linette.

  "Thork," she said sweetly, staring him straight in the eyes.

  He refused to answer, incensed at the spectacle she'd created once again.

  "Thork," she called out louder now. "Do you remember the time you shaved my legs for me?"

  His mouth dropped open.

  Dead silence reigned.

  "It was our tenth wedding anniversary, and we were high on white wine and... and love. You remember, don't you? It was your idea, so don't glare at me. You made me stand perfectly still, like this."

  Ruby stood with her legs slightly parted and almost fell over. She straightened herself by holding on to the back of the chair.

  Aud clamped her hand over her mouth at Ruby's outrageous conduct. Gyda seemed to be praying. Olaf smiled in appreciation of her daring. And Dar smirked from ear to ear with self-satisfaction, as if he'd planned the whole damned event. The young girl, Elise, was nowhere to be seen. It was probably past her bedtime.

  "You lathered both my legs with cream and then you shaved them, ever so slowly," Ruby went on with gusto, "all the way up to here." She drew a line with her hand at the tops of both thighs.

  Ruby felt fuzzy and disoriented, beginning to realize just how scandalous her behavior was, noticing the strained silence surrounding her. She started to back away as she saw Thork beginning to approach her around the circle of people, his eyes piercing her, his lips a pale line of white-hot anger.

  Thork's continual anger was really starting to annoy Ruby. Criminey! she decided, I might as well put the icing on the cake. Her eyes narrowed and held his in unspoken challenge.

  "Oh, and did I mention, Thork?" she said ever-so-sweetly. "We were both stark naked."

  Thork gurgled with words that would not come out as all eyes turned on him, but not for long. "Damn you!" he bellowed and lurched across the remaining people separating them. "Warned you were, wench. Over and over you were told what would happen if you pushed me." Without another wo
rd, he vaulted over a chair, picked Ruby up and carried her from the hall and up the steps.

  Ruby. was oblivious to the cheering laughter and loud speculation on her fate that followed them out of the hall. She snuggled in Thork's arms, burrowing her face in his neck, which smelled so sweetly of her own Jack and yet somehow marvelously different. Tomorrow Ruby would worry about her fate. Tonight she was back in Jack's, no, Thork's arms, where she belonged, and that was all that mattered.

  "Jack, honey," Ruby whispered and felt the muscled arms holding her stiffen, "I've missed you so much." Then she hiccuped softly in Thork's ear.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Your tongue ever outruns your good judgement, woman!" Thork raged, pacing back and forth across his sleeping chamber. He raked his fingers through his hair in agitation as he shot icy glances her way.

  Ruby watched him woozily on raised elbows from the cushiony softness of his massive bed where he'd thrown her in disgust after leaving the great hall. She wished he'd stand still. Her fuzzy tongue got in the way as she tried to speak in her own defense. She pushed the tip of her tongue between her lips to test their numbness, then giggled.

  "You find mirth in this situation?"

  "No... yes." Ruby tried to sit up, but the bed tilted crazily from side to side. Finally, feeling steadier, she sat upright. I mean... it's funny because I feel as if I've just been to the dentist. My lips and tongue are numb, and—"

  "Nay! Speak no more mysterious words and allusions to a future life that never was. More than enough have I had of your hints of a life we shared together. It never happened."

  Thork grabbed Ruby by the forearms, pulled her off the bed and shook her, trying to convince her of his seriousness.

  It sobered Ruby a bit.

  "Okay. Let's discuss this," she said, backing away a few steps. "You're upset because I said you shaved my legs."