“More sarcasm! Listen, I figure by the marks I’ve been making in a piece of wood that it must be about December fifth . . .”
“What wood have you been marking?”
“Do you have to keep interrupting me?” She blushed. “The underside of the arm of the chair in your bedroom.”
“You have been going into my bedchamber every day?”
“Yes! Would you stop harping on all these little irrelevancies?”
“Chopping up one of my chairs is irrelevant?” He was enjoying prodding her into a temper, immature as that was.
She made a clucking sound of disgust. “I love the Christmas season. The whole Yule season, especially all the weeks leading up to Christmas day. The tree. The decorations. The singing. The Christmas stories. The baking. The feast. Is it wrong for me to want to celebrate it here and share my traditions with your people?”
“ ’Tis not wrong. In truth, we celebrate the Yule here, too, except we call it
Jul
, and it comes at the time of winter solstice, to mark the end of the long, dark days of winter. A reaffirmation that winter is not forever, and life goes on.”
“Can’t we combine the two celebrations? Except it would be an early
Jul
this year?”
He heaved a long sigh at yet another of her interferences in their everyday life. “As long as it does not disrupt our routine. No more havoc.”
“It won’t. I promise.” And she nigh skipped off, no doubt to create more havoc. But then she skipped back, reached up, and kissed him quickly on the lips. “Thank you.” And she was off again.
At that point, he decided, she could create all the havoc she wanted. That warm mood carried him through the day’s work . . . until that evening when he entered his great hall, and his eyes nigh bulged from their sockets at the transformation.
There are many different ways to celebrate . . .
Joy was in rare form that night, and she knew it.
She love, love, loved the Christmas season, and she was going to make sure all these primitive people enjoyed it as much as she did. Starting tonight.
Shifting from foot to foot in excitement, she waited for Brandr to enter, then rushed up to him. She wasn’t surprised by his shock on first seeing the things she had done. It
was
an amazing transformation.
He was about to speak, probably to protest.
She wasn’t about to let him rain on her parade, or Christmas cheer, so she put a forefinger to his lips. “Shhh. Don’t say anything. Give me a chance to explain everything.”
“You put a dead tree indoors and then placed lit candles all over it. That is an invitation to fire, if ever I saw one.”
The eighteen-foot tree was beautiful, in her opinion, even without modern electric lights and fancy ornaments. “It’s perfectly safe. Those twin boys, Brokk and Gandolf, have the job of watering the tree morning and night, and I’ve set buckets of water beside the tree in case there is a fire. Besides, it will only be lit at night, during the evening meal.”
“How many bloody candles did you use? Have we any left? They must last ’til our next trip to the markets.”
“Only fifty.”
“Only fifty,” he mouthed silently. Then, aloud, “And all that red ribbon and the crystal beads?”
“From your treasure room. Oh, don’t get in a snit. I’ll return them, good as new, once Christmas is over.”
“A snit? I do not snit.” Then he smiled, dimple and all.
Her heart turned over. She loved him so, despite his archaic views.
“I know for a fact that I did not have a copper star in my treasure room.”
“Oh, that! I had your blacksmith cut the bottom out of a copper kettle and cut the shape. Then I polished it up a bit.”
She thought he might object to her ruining a perfectly good kettle, but he didn’t.
He laughed. “What am I going to do with you?”
She had a few ideas. “Just give me a chance to show you tonight. If you don’t like it, I’ll take it all down.”
He agreed and let her lead him up to the dais, just as a group of children came in singing, as she’d taught them, “Jingle Bells,” accompanied by actual ringing of cow and sleigh bells.
At first, there was a period of stunned silence, then all Brandr’s people began to laugh and join in the singing. Like people everywhere, the Vikings welcomed an occasion to party.
“Unbelievable!” Brandr said at her side. But he was still smiling. Joy took that as a good sign.
“People!” Joy said, standing with arms raised to get their attention. “Today is the first day of the Christmas season here at Bear’s Lair, and the first day to celebrate your very own
Jul
. Yes, I know, it’s early, but what better thing to do when the long, dark days of winter are still with us. This is what I plan to do.”
She then told them how, during the next three weeks, she would teach them songs and stories from her time, like the “Jingle Bells” they had just heard. And she would welcome any of their stories and traditions, as well.
Waving a hand for the servers to bring in the food, she talked while they ate. First, she told them about St. Nicholas and Santa Claus, launching into a recounting of the famous “Night Before Christmas” story. They enjoyed it so much, banging their mugs on the tables, they insisted she repeat it five times and let her stop only when she promised to tell it again the following night.
Then she described how people in her time prepared their homes for Christmas, not just with trees, but decorating with holly and mistletoe. The old skald Alviss waved his hand and hobbled up to the bottom of the dais. “We have legends of the mistletoe, as well.”
She smiled and sat down next to Brandr, letting Alviss take the floor. The old man rambled on about mistletoe being the golden bough, the plant of peace, and that when enemies met beneath it in the forest, they must needs lay down weapons and not fight until the next day. After the winter solstice, people placed sprigs of it over doorways and baby cradles for good luck.
“Mistletoe is equated with kissing in my time,” Joy called out. “If you get caught under the mistletoe, you have to kiss whomever comes by.”
“Well, there is that, too,” Alviss agreed. “Baldr, not unlike your Christ, was a good and kindly god.” He was speaking to Joy but also to all those in the hall, who were partaking quietly of their food and drink. “His mother, Frigg, goddess of love and beauty, went throughout the world urging fire, water, air, and earth to protect her favored son from harm. But Loki, the jester god, an evil one, to be sure, was jealous, and he found a loophole to Frigg’s safe charms: the mistletoe. From its wood he fashioned an arrow and used Baldr’s blind brother Hoder to pierce Baldr’s heart. Thereafter, Frigg’s tears became the mistletoe’s berries. And some say that Baldr was thus revived to life, and thereafter Frigg deemed the mistletoe to be the symbol of love, and those passing under it should bestow a kiss.” Alviss turned to her then. “See, we are not so unlike.”
“Who says Vikings aren’t romantics?” Joy remarked, reaching beside her on the table to lace her fingers with Brandr’s.
He stared down at their linked hands.
She feared he would draw away from her, as he had been doing for weeks.
Instead, he squeezed her hand. “Well done, wench.”
She tilted her head in question.
“It was a good evening for my people. Methinks we will enjoy your Christmas celebration.”
“Thank you.”
“Nay, thank you,” he said, turning to look at her. Then, he stood, pulling her up beside him. “Come.”
She knew without a doubt what he meant by that single word. Should she balk and ask for promises? Should she point out all the reasons why she should not? Should she expound again on the barbarism of slavery?
No, none of those. Not now.
Choose your battles,
Joy warned herself.
And seize the day.
“Yes. Let’s move this celebration to your bedchamber.”
“Precisely.” He lifted her still-laced fingers to his mouth and kissed them, one at a time, holding her gaze the entire time.
Chapter 20
Even Viking men can have their worlds rocked now and then . . .
There was a roaring fire in his bedchamber hearth, much larger than the usual nighttime embers. Myriad candles had been lit about the room. A pitcher of wine and two silver goblets sat on a low table. A bed fur lay on the floor betwixt two chairs in front of the fire. All as Brandr had directed a house servant to arrange a short time ago.
He had known since this afternoon that he would be bringing Joy back to his bed furs. Her smile had been his undoing. Tonight’s festivities, all her idea, had only reinforced his desire for her.
And desire it was, like none other he had ever experienced. Sex, of course, but more than that. It was a gentle yearning. A warmth that could grow white-hot in the throes of making love and glow with bone-deep heat that settled in the soul.
It scared him as no battle ever had.
Joy kept turning this way and that, taking it all in. “And you criticized me for wasting candles.”
“All in a good cause.”
She grinned at him, knowing full well what he planned. And not objecting, thank the gods.
He handed her a goblet of wine, then sank into one of the chairs, watching her. “I wanted enough light to see you,” he said. “All of you.”
She sipped her wine, still standing near the door.
He beckoned her forward with his fingertips.
After taking a few more sips, she set the goblet down and walked forward.
“Nay. Stop,” he ordered when she was about to step on the fur. “Undress for me, sweetling. Slowly. Very slowly. And un-braid your hair.” He rested one ankle on the opposite knee and relaxed back into his chair, cupping his goblet on his lap.
Without hesitation, she raised her arms and began to untwine her hair from its intricate three-way braid. Afterward, she combed her fingers through the wavy mass so it lay to her shoulders like a fiery mantle.
“I adore your hair,” he said.
“It was the bane of my life growing up. Some of the meaner kids called me Orphan Annie.”
“I do not know this orphan, but she must have been a beauty.”
“Not quite.” She toed off her leather half boots, removed her belt, then began to unlace the front of her gown.
“Slowly,” he reminded her.
With a saucy grin, she turned and glanced back at him over her shoulder. Then, slowly, she let the gown slip down her arms to her wrists, where she held it, thus exposing her back down to her waist and the upper curve of her buttocks.
’Twas a beauteous sight. The red hair. The creamy skin of her shoulders and upper arms, which had the muscle shaping of a warrior, but then the feminine curve of her lower back, which was anything but manly. Without warning, she let the gunna drop the rest of the way to pool at her feet. Now she wore only thigh-high black hose. Her entire body, back view, was open now for his inspection, including delightfully plump buttocks.
His blood had already been thickening, but it nigh went to boiling when she bent over to release the ties on her hose, letting them, too, drop to the floor. “Oh, bloody hell!” he murmured at the lurching of his manpart. Not only was she giving him a view of forbidden territory, but her long, long legs appeared to have been shaven. For a certainty, he would explore that modern practice.
“Is this slow enough for you?” she asked, having straightened and turning slowly so that he had a full frontal view.
There was a dreamlike intimacy as she stood, vulnerable to his measuring inspection. High breasts, small waist, red curly hairs, long legs. For some odd reason, he noticed the flare of her hips and wondered what it would be like to have his babe nestled beneath, something she claimed could never happen.
The irony was that he had ne’er yearned to plant his seed in any womb, but now that he knew it was impossible, with Joy, he wanted it above all else.
Stepping forward, he cradled her face in his trembling hands. “You are so beautiful,” he said before lowering his mouth to hers. He tried to let her know through mind thoughts and mere lips how precious she was to him.
She put her hands to his chest and raised up on tiptoes to better meet his kiss. Closing her eyes, she opened for him, kissing him back. He could feel shudders rippling through her body, matched by his own shaken composure.
“Slowly,” he repeated again and helped her lie down on the fur, legs parted. While he began to remove his clothing, she watched closely, braced on her elbows.
“You like what you see?” he inquired at the slight smile on her face.
“Oh, yeah, but you’re the one who’s beautiful.”
“What a foolish notion! I am too big and rough-edged.”