Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) (35 page)

             
“I will kill him” said Luke simply “now, if you don’t want me to ravish you, go to sleep, I intend to”

             
Alodie felt her heart begin to pound in her chest - he had lost the last vestiges of twenty fifth century morals.  “Have you seen the children?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

             
“Yes, I looked in” he replied “they were being fed by those big titted sisters, the girl’s like you”

             
“and Tom?”

             
“Spitting image of his dear old dad” Alodie sighed and shuffled back down under the covers, as she turned on her side Luke added, in Norse,  “especially round the eyes”

*****************************

             
Alodie came downstairs later that morning to find Godgyth clucking round young Swein like a mother hen round a chick.  He was a typical Viking child, at least a head and shoulders above the undersized Saxon village children of the same age and several inches broader, with blond curly hair, solemn cornflower blue eyes and surprisingly good teeth.

             
He was obviously and understandably terrified but trying hard to hide it so Alodie decided to treat him as she would a cadet under her command, kindly but firmly.

             
He bowed gravely on being introduced to her and, in very good Saxon, pronounced himself charmed.  Alodie tried to stifle a smile.  “Have you seen the village yet Swein?” she enquired.

             
He shook his head “I  - I am not sure lady as to whether I will be allowed out of doors, I am a prisoner you see”

             
“Hmph” interjected Godgyth “if Oswy and Luke think to keep you immured in here and under the feet all day they will have me to deal with.  So long as you promise not to go out of the village I cannot see that my lord and husband could have any objections to your playing with the other children”

             
Swein looked up sharply.  “I do not
play with children
my lady, I am a warrior!”

             
Alodie smiled and gestured toward the table.  “Of course you are Swein, do warriors like oatmeal with honey and cream?”

             
The lad nodded, “Yes, lady, well this one does, I have already had some”

             
“Like some more?” she asked.  Swein allowed himself a smile and dived for the chair.  Ladling a good portion into a wooden bowl and liberally covering it with honey and cream Alodie pushed it toward him “After you’ve eaten, young warrior, you can come round the village with me and we’ll talk, I will need a protector”

             
Swein looked up from his oatmeal and blushed.  “Yours to command milady” he stammered.

Two bowlfuls later Alodie and young Swein were walking through the gap in the hedge and into the body of the village.  It was a beautiful day in early summer, the bees were buzzing, the trees were in full leaf and the sun shone warmly.  Alodie was wearing a light blue kirtle and had left off her gunna due to the heat, Swein kept looking sideways at her, obviously wanting badly to say something but too shy to come out with it.  “What’s on your mind, Swein?” she asked at last, in Norse, the lad’s jaw dropped in amazement.

             
“You speak our language lady!” he gasped, then a look of understanding crossed his features “Of course, now I remember, I heard you could”

             
Alodie turned to him, a look of puzzlement on her face “You have heard of me Swein, in what connection?”

             
“Who has not heard of the beauteous Lady Alodie, wife of the great King Herger?”

             
“Widow of the great King Herger” she corrected gently.

             
The lad shook his head vehemently “No, milady, he still lives.  In a deep sleep from which no one can awaken him, ‘tis true, but he lives”

             
Alodie was stunned.  She had been sure that the deformed monster Herger was dead, no one could take a low blast from a psi gun and live. “Are you sure Swein?” she asked, her voice came out as a croak.

             
They had come to a stream, Swein handed her across, a fat speckled trout swam lazily under the shelter of an overhanging tree.

             
“Certain lady, he was taken to Seinshaven in Norway just after Thor showed his displeasure by destroying the party which had come to collect the gold” A fly threatened to land on the boy’s nose, he waved it, half angrily, away.

             
They had come to the wooden stockade which surrounded the village, Alodie pointed down the path “The sea lies a mile down this lane, when you have been here a while longer I’ll get someone to take you to bathe if you wish” the lad’s face lit up.

             
“That would be fine lady, is there a beach?”

             
Alodie nodded “a lovely sandy one, I mean to take my children, Tom and Nerissa there when they grow a bit”

             
Swein glanced up at her. “Children!  Those babes I saw being fed, they are yours?”  Alodie nodded.  Swein picked up a twig from the ground and began to nibble the end of it.  “Who is their father?”  Alodie drew a sharp breath, she had not expected a question like that from a child of ten but, she reminded herself, Swein was not a normal ten year old.

             
“Luke, of course, my husband”

             
Swein looked up at her, a look of astonishment on his face.  “Luke Edmundson, that fat man who drinks ale and mead all day and swears - he is your husband?  You prefer that boasting
nithing
to the greatest warrior who ever lived?  I cannot believe it!”

             
Alodie flushed. “We had better be turning back young Swein, we don’t want my husband out searching for us do we? And I want to see my babies”

             
Swein threw down his twig and running up to her side drew up his sleeve, a black bruise almost covered his forearm.  “Your ‘husband’ did that on the way here.  I had done nothing, he just hit me with the flat of his sword, he also mentioned my uncle - he said ‘that’s for being related to that bastard Rorik’.  It was not an honourable thing to do, I am an unarmed captive and not yet grown, I have sworn to kill him for it when I am older - I do not think he is worthy of you” he glanced up at her, adoration shining in his eyes  “I do not think anyone is worthy of you - except Herger”

             
Alodie felt a physical lump come to her throat - Luke was getting worse - was he losing his mind?  It was possible, autodoc was not programmed to treat self inflicted conditions like alcohol or drug abuse.

             
They had come within sight of the inner stockade.  A swineherd was in front of them, trying to move his squealing charges from the path “touching your Uncle Rorik, how is he?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

             
Swein laughed “Uncle Rorik? You know him? He is fine, he has at last got his heart’s desire.  My father has finally allowed him to marry the woman he has always loved - mewling milksop though she is.  Kristen is her name, although he was more avid for the match than she, I went to the wedding.  A poor affair”

             
Alodie felt the ground move in front of her, her heart sank and tears filled her eyes
I’m going to be sick
she thought
I’m really going to throw up
“Was it a love match then?”

             
The young lad laughed “On his part, yes, he adored her, followed her around like a pup, everyone laughed at him.  They married in Blot Monath - I mean November”

             
Blot Monath - November - I will be back for you then
the words echoed hollowly round in her head.
You total and complete bastard Rorik - you used my body, spoke your empty lying love words to me.  Oh, how you must be laughing, leading the dumb little Saxon bitch on, probably laughing about her with that whore Gwen.  Well I’ll get even with you if its the last thing I do, I hate you!
  She  glanced down at her wrist, the bracelet he had given her winked treacherously in the sunlight.  She had an overwhelming urge to drag it from her wrist and grind it under her heel but even as she reached for it her hand stopped, No, she would keep it. It was a beautiful thing and every time she looked at it it would remind her of the perfidy of men and when she was old enough she would give it to Nerissa, the only thing she would ever have from her father.  With a groan she clenched her fists and rocked backward.

             
“Lady” said Swein concernedly, steadying her “Are you alright?”  Alodie took a deep breath and unclenched her fists.

             
“I’m well Swein - now, I just felt slightly faint for a moment, now let’s go get some marigold balsam on that arm”

Summer had been a long time coming to Norway but at last the sun had risen high enough to allow the ice which habitually coated the outside walls of the main hall to begin to melt, and only this morning Thora, the mother of Ingvar the chieftain and Herger the great sea king, had directed her women to begin the summer work, the brushing, the cleaning and the renewing of old rushes, the taking down and repairing of the wall hangings and the raking out of the old ashes in the fire-pit.

             
Thora sighed deeply and leaned against the wall of the house, the stone struck chill against the flesh of her back but she did not notice, her heart was too full.  She felt tears well up in her eyes and she blinked them angrily away.

             
Odin had punished her, punished her almost beyond bearing and she did not know in what way she had angered him.

             
Until last year she had been a happy woman with two fine sons.  True the eldest, Ingvar, had lost his wife in childbed but Thora had assumed that he would find another within a short space, why half the maidens in
Norway
would be clamouring for such an eligible young widower, but time passed and Ingvar had shown no sign of wanting to replace
Helga
.  Thora had invited the most beauteous maidens in
Norway
to Seinshaven but to no avail, Ingvar preferred to spend his time with Trigve, the leader of his hyrd.  They hunted, fished and wrestled together, why Trigve had even taken to sleeping in his master’s room like a dog.  Thora smiled bitterly at the simile - like a dog was right, a good description of the goings on in Ingvar’s chamber.

             
One night in late August last year as she was going to bed she heard moans from her son’s room and thinking him ill and being a good mother, she had pushed open the door.  The sight which greeted her would be burned into her brain until the day she died - her boy, the head of the family, son and brother to two of the greatest warriors in the history of Norway, a man with royal blood in his veins, was crouched on all fours, gowned in a woman’s kirtle whilst that base born swine Trigve......no that way lay madness.   To think of her eldest son, the one she had always been closest to, being a
ragr man
was too much to bear.  So intent on their foul passion were they that she had been able to stand there, horrified, for almost a full minute, feeling the bile rise in her throat, before she slipped quietly out.

             
She had not said anything, she had not dared, if word had got out Ingvar would have been finished, there was only one fate for a
ragr man
– death
-
and a horrible one at that.

             
Soon after that, however, fate had dealt her its bitterest blow.  Bjarnie, son of her dearest friend and faithful retainer Gudrun, had come slowly up the path followed by a litter borne by four strong men inside which was her younger son, Herger, the glorious sea king and one of the richest men in
Norway
- the apple of his father’s eye and beloved of all.  He had been kicked in the head by a horse and, cursed by Thor, at whose thunderbolt the horse had reared, lay even now in a deep sleep from which no one could rouse him, dead and yet living.

             
Each day she washed him with her own hands and sat and talked to him.  He breathed, his heart beat, but he was dead.  She kept him alive by propping him up, spooning broth into him and rubbing his throat to make him swallow.  His head wound had healed, the scar was under his hair, he bore no mark from his accident but still he slept on.

             
Shaking her head Thora pulled herself together and, seeing a thrall sitting on a grassy bank picking flowers instead of helping to gather firewood, stalked across and slapped the erring woman across the face, whereupon she immediately burst into noisy tears. “Mewling Saxon milksop!” snapped Thora “with females like you as breeding stock no wonder your kind are so easily vanquished, get off your fat lazy backside and WORK!”

             
The woman wiped her eyes and bending down began to fill her arms with split logs, when she had gathered three she turned and shuffled disconsolately back to the house.

             
Thora looked after her with distaste, three! Bah, when she was that useless bitch’s age she could carry seven at least.  She disliked that thrall anyway - what was her name - Emma, that was it, Emma, daughter of the thegn of somewhere or other and a treacherous sow who had betrayed her own countrymen and had quite rightly been disowned by her family.  With the death of her protector Thorkil, she had been sent as a house slave on the ship which had brought her Herger.  In Thora’s mind such a creature should not even have been allowed on the same vessel as her son.

             
Wrapping her arms around her chest with a shiver, Thora walked down the cliff path and on turning the corner the full vista of the fjord greeted her.  She never tired of looking at the view from here, the beautiful blue water, clear and deep, the tiny yellow and blue flowers which flooded the meadow leading down to the water’s edge making the whole panorama one of breathtaking loveliness as the gold and blue merged, mingled and waved in a riot of colour - and the ships, the
reindeer ships, snake ships -
sneykjas
, trading
knarrs
and the great dragon ships -
drakkars,
of which
the
Freyja
was the largest, tied up at the quay, all added to the beauty of Seinshaven, one of the most prosperous steadings in Norway.

             
She turned, feeling rather than hearing the footsteps behind her, it was Bjarnie, he blushed to the roots of his red hair and cleared his throat self-consciously.  “Pardon lady, for the interruption - I was wondering how Herger  was today?”

             
Thora smiled at him and took his arm.  “Each day you ask and each day my answer is the same my good Bjarnie, he does not alter - come to the house and see for yourself”

             
“I will come each day and ask until there is some change lady, I am his sworn man, he is my lord and I have pledged my life to serve him”

             
Thora patted Bjarnie’s freckled red haired forearm.  “You are a good lad Bjarnie, your mother must be very proud of you” she said quietly.

             
Turning the corner they came in sight of the two storey stone built hall which was home to Thora, Ingvar and ten house thralls, the rest of the thralls sleeping in long low huts scattered round the settlement.

             
It was cooler inside the building than out as the fire pit had not as yet been re-laid and Bjarnie was glad to get up the low stone steps into the south facing room where Herger lay, wrapped in furs, with a fire constantly burning.

             
Thora gestured to the motionless figure on the bed with a shrug of helplessness.  “Here you see him, he that was your leader Bjarnie - condemned to this straw death”

             
It was the first time Bjarnie had seen Herger in months, he usually just asked at the door then left.  Going down on one knee he took Herger’s hand and examined his face.  Apart from the pallor of being kept indoors he looked to be in nothing more than a deep sleep, he breathed evenly, his pulse was regular and his colour was quite good, his muscles, however, felt slack.

             
“This is no way for a warrior like you to live Herger” he said quietly “is it the wench you pine for?”

             
Thora turned at the door “Wench?  Wench? What do you mean, Bjarnie?  My son had a wench he was fond of?”

             
Bjarnie looked up, hastily blinking back unmanly tears.  “Aye, did you not know?  A Saxon, he was more than fond of her, he married her” there was a tap at the door and Emma walked in with some logs, the fire was low. 

             
“Put them on the fire, thrall and get out!” snapped Thora, bad temperedly.  “Married? My son?  A Viking warrior married to a Saxon?  This I do  not believe.  He thinks all Saxons are 
nithings
!  Where is the wench? What is her name?”

             
“She is no ordinary Saxon lady, she was the niece of the thegn of Bredond.  Herger was mad for her.  She was captured and auctioned, he bought her for a huge amount, I cannot for the life of me remember her name though” Bjarnie struck his forehead with his freckled fist in frustration.  “She was the most beautiful maiden I have ever seen, she looked like Freyja come to life, thick golden hair, skin like a peach, eyes the colour of a midsummer sky, brave, learned, she could read and write both Saxon and Norse.....”

             
The fire had begun to flare up again as the new logs were settled into the fire pit, Emma curtsied and left, shutting the door behind her.

             
“........and you say my son loved this woman?  Where is she?  What happened to her?”

             
Bjarnie shrugged, “I do not know lady, she fled straight after the wedding,
s
he had never seen Herger without his full face helmet and for a jest Guthrum, at the celebrations, terrified her with a foul lying story that he was a deformed and cruel monster and she ran into the forest.  Herger searched but found no sign of her - it eventually came to him that she was in
Winchester
, so during the peace negotiations he pretended to be Rorik, Guthrum’s brother, and went to
Winchester
as a hostage.....”

             
“Whaat - my son pretending to be that mewling idiot?”

             
“Aye but in order to woo this wench, which he did and when he left he told her that he would return for her in Blot Monath but.......” Bjarnie glanced again at the still form under the furs “he never did”

             
Thora paced the room “so this woman was dear to him?”

             
“He was mad in love with her - I have never seen him as happy as he was on the road from
Winchester
just before....”

             
Thora punched one hand with the other.  “Think, Bjarnie, if we could say her name to him maybe it would penetrate his sleep”

             
Bjarnie scratched his red hair and tugged absent-mindedly at his beard “Anna, Alason....nay, these Saxon names all sound the same” suddenly he glanced up and snapped his fingers “of course! That thrall I brought back, the sour faced one, she is the wench’s cousin or something, she was the one who told Herger the whereabouts of the wench when he thought her dead in the forest after her flight - she’ll tell you”

             
With a speed which Bjarnie would have thought impossible for a woman her age Thora ran for the door and yelled down the steps like a fish wife for that tow headed slut Emma to be brought to Lord Herger’s chamber immediately.

             
Within two minutes a panting and fearful Emma, who had been dozing by the log pile, was curtseying in front of Bjarnie and Thora “You ask her, Bjarnie, I have none of their doltish tongue” snapped the old woman impatiently.

             
“....and I not much more but I will try lady” he gestured to the bed “Herger......
brudkaup
- ach what is the word?”  Emma looked confused “wed.....wed girl”

             
Emma nodded “yes, my cousin’s betrothed”

             
“Name, name what?”

             
“Name - her name?”  Emma screwed up her face “Alodie, they call her Alodie” 
Alodie
thought Emma
Alodie, even in my distress and serfdom I hear that witch’s name.  Will I never be free of her?
May she be cursed by all the fiends in Hell!
   

             
Thora and Bjarnie wheeled round simultaneously and, after dismissing Emma, Thora sat down heavily on the bed, took her son’s hand and stroked it, “My boy, my golden warrior, awake.  Think not of me nor your ships and men, think of your wife Alodie, who waits for you, wake Herger, my dear son, Alodie waits for you, Alodie........”

             
Alodie, Alodie, Alodie
..................somewhere in Herger’s numbed brain there was a spark of consciousness, an almost dormant spark true, but a spark nonetheless.  As the name ‘Alodie’ filtered down into his subconscious it began to fan the flame, soon his brain began to send out feeble electrical impulses - Alodie, he must get back to Alodie or she would have to marry.......who?  Luke, that was it, he must wake, he must get to Alodie.

             
“Lady, I swear I saw his brow furrow”

             
“and I felt his hand move Bjarnie.  Odin, is my son to be saved by a Saxon wench?  Is this all it is going to take to bring him back to us?  Wake for Alodie my son, wake for your wife, you must find her”

             
Must find her, must find her