Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) (25 page)

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Alodie kept the Viking waiting a further quarter of an hour whilst she changed into something more suitable for riding.  At length she walked slowly into the courtyard dressed in a white kirtle with a buttercup yellow gunna and a white gauzy headrail.

             
Rorik was holding both horses and, on seeing her, smiled a devastating smile which made her heart turn cartwheels and her breath catch in her throat.

             
Silently he handed her onto her horse and, accompanied by Martin, a big strong hulking brute who was badly in need of both a bath and a shave and Edward, a thin wiry individual with a sharp nose and an even sharper chin, they clattered out of the courtyard.

             
For once the weather had relented and the sun shone hot and golden from a clear blue sky.  They rode silently through the streets, steaming now in the sun, which had dried them into hard baked mud as opposed to wet sloppy mud, and squeezed their horses through the multitude of shouting, laughing, sweating, jostling humanity who, in most cases, on spying the beautiful lady and the giant Norseman, stood back, open mouthed in astonishment.

             
On they rode, past the wood stall with its selection of bowls, spoons, three legged stools and barrels, past the bone carver’s shop where, among other things, combs and pins were for sale, past the leather shops where an array of boots and shoes could be purchased and so to the edge of the town.

             
The last shop before the town gates belonged to Alfred the goldsmith and here Rorik reined in his horse.  He turned to Alodie. “My lady” he said “would you excuse me for one moment?  I have an errand here”.  Alodie nodded, absently,
probably some trinket for a poor love struck Danish maiden
she thought.

             
Looking round she spotted a skinny, ragged little girl, aged about eight, staring at her from a nearby doorway, thumb in mouth.  Smiling, Alodie beckoned her forward.  At first the child looked afraid then, curiosity getting the better of her, she gingerly approached the lovely lady on the horse.

             
“Hello, what’s your name?” asked Alodie.

             
“Margaret, mileddy” replied the child.  Alodie smiled at her.

             
“Do you live there Margaret?” she asked, gesturing toward the hut the child had just left.

             
“Yes, mileddy with me da and brothers”

             
“and where is your mother?”

             
Alodie saw a tear come into the child’s eyes which the little girl dashed away, almost, Alodie thought, with an air of impatience.  “Ma?  She died and went to ‘evven when she ‘ad our Adam mileddy” Enormous blue eyes stared out at her from a mop of filthy blonde hair.  Alodie felt tears spring into her own.

             
“How many brothers do you have, Margaret?” she whispered.

             
“Three” replied the child “there was four once but Edwin died.   I got three brothers now, I look after them all day while Da’s in the fields”

             
“You look after them?  But child, you’re too young, you should be looked after yourself!”

             
“Nay!” snapped the child “I’m almost twelve, I’m nearly a woman!”

             
Of course
thought Alodie
borderline malnutrition from the day a person was born would tend to stunt their growth.
  Alodie felt an almost overwhelming urge to do something for this family. “What is your father’s name, Margaret?” she asked.

             
“Wat ma’am.  Wat the cooper, least he was a cooper before the moneylender took his tools for the money he borrowed to pay for Ma’s medicine” she drew an idle line in the mud with her big toe “Now he hires out on field work.  We used to eat better when he was a cooper with his own shop but Da sez Ma took all his luck with ‘er when she went to ‘evven”

             
Almost overcome with emotion Alodie got down from her horse and, crouching down in front of the child, took both her hands.  “Listen, Margaret, tell your father, when he gets back from the fields tonight, to come to the kings hall and ask for me”

             
The child gasped “You’re the queen!” she breathed.  “I knew no one else could be so beautiful!”

             
Alodie smiled again “No, darling I’m not the queen, I am the Lady Alodie, the queen’s friend.  Tell your father to come and ask for me and I shall do my best to see to it that you don’t go hungry again.

             
I know the king was talking the other day about the poor quality of the barrels he has in the hall and I think if your father makes a good and serviceable barrel, he should see his fortunes begin to improve”

             
The child’s face lit up.  “Ma’am!  Mileddy, thank you” she whispered.

             
“Here” said Alodie impulsively and pulling out her purse she thrust a handful of coins into the child’s hands. “Now take this money and buy your brothers, your father and yourself a good meal”

             
The child’s eyes grew as big as saucers.

             
“There’s enough ‘ere to feed us for a month!  May the Lord bless you mileddy, you and your ‘andsome ‘usband, may you have many fine sons and daughters!” with that she curtsied and ran off.

             
A deep laugh behind her made Alodie spin on her heel, Rorik was leaning against the goldsmith’s shop with a broad smile on his face.

             
Alodie felt herself beginning to blush, he must have heard the child’s allusion to ‘husband’.  Mustering her dignity she climbed back onto her horse “Are you quite ready, my lord?” she asked curtly.

             
Rorik grinned and sprang onto his stallion. “Quite milady, and I am sure King Alfred complains constantly about the poor quality of his barrels”

             
Alodie turned to him. “You mock my helping these people?”

             
“No, not at all, I just wonder whether it is misplaced.  The father probably drank all his money and the mother was doubtless a drab who ran off with a tinker”

             
“You are a cynic, my lord” she said “I spend more on one gown than it would take to set this man up with tools to start his trade again, to give him self respect and enable him to hold his head up among his people - to fill his children’s bellies for God’s sake”

             
“Yes, but you are down one gown” replied Rorik, smiling.

             
“You jest with me sir” said Alodie, returning the smile.  “I do not think you are as cold hearted as you appear”

             
Rorik smiled again and clicking to his horse, they passed though the gates and headed down the road toward the forest.

             
A lark was singing its heart out somewhere high in the sky and the track was bordered with lush green grass and clumps of wildflowers making it a riot of blue, purple, red, yellow and green.

             
Alodie drank it all in, breathing deeply, the scent nearly overwhelming her.  The birdsong was almost deafening with blue tits, chaffinches, willow warblers and wood pigeons vying with each other to sing the loudest song.

             
As the lane entered the cool shade of the woods the trees seemed to muffle the birdsong.  Alodie noticed the thick green carpet of dog’s mercury with its large fleshy leaves, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a squirrel disappear up a nearby oak tree.  They had ridden without speaking since they left the town, the silence broken only by the clip clop of the horses’ hooves and the muttering of the two men riding behind them.

             
At last Rorik leaned over to Alodie and putting his hand on her arm whispered “How do you suggest we get rid of those two?”

             
She bit back a desire to laugh and, remembering her dignity, sat a little straighter in the saddle.  “You should not even think of it my lord.  If we rode off now it might be assumed that you were escaping and taking me with you as hostage.  It would certainly endanger the peace talks”

             
Rorik laughed and scratched the back of his horse’s ears.  “That is the sort of reply I would expect a man to make” he replied, grinning.

             
At length they rode into a clearing dominated by a huge oak tree, a black white and red woodpecker was hammering away at its bark and round its trunk grew a riot of foxgloves and woodland orchids; alder trees, interspersed with sycamores and ash, bordered the clearing.  In a nearby field a horse neighed, making the ears of Alodie’s mare prick up.  Rorik breathed deeply.  “Odin, but this country of yours is beautiful, that is why we are trying to wrest it from you.  We rarely have days as warm as this in
Norway
”.

             
“I thought you were Danish” Alodie said, looking round sharply.

             
“I split my time between my holdings in
Norway
and a steading I own in
Northumbria
, I visit
Denmark
rarely” he replied, evenly “which reminds me, how did you learn to speak our tongue so well?”

             
“There were several Danes living in our village, traders who had settled, they taught me”

             
“Ah then,” he twinkled “you don’t think we are all barbarians”

             
Alodie did not answer him as at that moment a rabbit ran out from the undergrowth and her horse reared.  She let out a cry and pulled back on the reins.  Seizing his chance Rorik hit her horse on the rump and, spurring his own, turned into the trees, grabbing Alodie’s reins and pulling the mare after him.  “Keep down!” he shouted to her.    Rorik pulled the mare through a thick stand of hazel and into the depths of the wood.  Alodie felt the blood drumming in her ears as they galloped under low hanging branches and flattened herself against her horse’s sweating neck as they moved deeper and deeper into the trees.

             
In the distance she heard the shouts of Martin and Edward as they attempted to follow but as Alodie already knew, the dense foliage and thick undergrowth of Saxon Wessex was not the easiest place to track anyone.

             
They galloped through the trees for what seemed to her like hours, Shadow was tiring and beginning to slow her pace but the Viking urged the mare on.  At last they crashed into a small clearing and Rorik brought the horses to a standstill.

             
Alodie looked round, struck speechless by the breathtaking beauty of the place.  A small stream cascaded over some green lichened rocks into a limpid pool from which a doe and her fawns were drinking - on catching sight of the two humans, however, they fled in a flurry of hooves.  A carpet of buttercups and daisies, phlox, campion and milkmaid led to the pool and the whole clearing was ringed by ancient hornbeams and stately oaks, the hot, late August sun beat down on the scene, tinting it with a golden glow.  Alodie was, despite being uneasy, enchanted.

             
Dismounting, Rorik tethered his horse to a tree overhanging the pool and then, placing his huge hands around her waist, lifted her down.  Flustered and at a loss for words she walked past him and, pretending a calmness she did not feel, began to pick some wildflowers.

             
“We should not be alone here Rorik” she said at last “my reputation will be worth nothing”

             
He laughed, almost grimly “Do you fear me Alodie?” he asked.

             
She looked up at him and climbed to her feet, her hastily gathered posy of flowers clasped to defensively to her chest.  “A little, yes, any woman would be afraid in my position” she glanced round, the horses had wandered off and started to crop the grass.

             
Rorik reached out and plucking a poppy from her bouquet twirled it between his fingers. “Ah yes, perhaps you have reason to fear - alone with a big bad Viking in the depths of the forest, although I am sure had I taken yon plump  Welshwoman riding with me this morning I would be between her thighs by now”

             
Alodie tried to look suitably shocked. “You forget yourself sir!” she snapped, and turning her back on him walked to the edge of the pool and stared into its sapphire blue depths.  A fat trout swam lazily back and forth reaching up now and again to grab any hapless fly which ventured too close to the surface.  Alodie dropped the flowers into the water and watched as they spread out into a colourful arc, then bobbed and floated downstream.

             
The sun on her head was making her insufferably hot and kneeling down she ran her fingers along the top of the water.  Seeing her reflection staring back at her she was reminded of an old fairy story book which she had treasured as a child - it had belonged to her great grandmother. In it there was a picture of just such a pool as this and a lady peering into it -
The Princess and the Frog
.  The remembrance of it made her smile.