Page 28 of The Blue Viking

While he and all the men and boys had worked on the stone-and-timber walls, many of which were now back to their former condition, Maire had gone indoors to complete some much-needed cleaning. Apparently, recent months had afforded no time to keep up the interior of the castle. More urgent demands… like how to withstand the MacNabs … had taken precedence. But, no, the condition of the keep bespoke long-standing neglect, not just the past few months since Maire’s husband’s death. Hmmm.

Now old rushes had been raked out, dirt floors swept, and new fragrant rushes laid down. Rusted-out weaponry and shields had been taken down from the walls, and were out in the courtyard, where youthlings were honing and polishing them with sandstone and soft cloths to a glossy shine. Housemaids were scouring the wood trestle tables that had been folded up against the walls during the cleaning operation. And finely woven tapestries were being laundered in a side yard off the kitchen. He wondered who had done the tapestry in Maire’s bedchamber and reminded himself to ask her later. Even as he watched, an old woman carried a yoke with two buckets of clean water from the kitchen garden well.

He saw Maire giving orders like a Norse chieftain. She looked as exhausted as he felt. Pressing the heels of his palms to the small of his back, Rurik arched his shoulders back to remove the kinks of hard labor. There was a strange, immediate sort of satisfaction in working with one’s hands, and Rurik suspected that Maire was feeling the same way about the work she’d accomplished this day. He knew he was correct in his assumption when she glanced up and smiled at him … before she remembered that he was her enemy, and turned her smile to a frown.

But he’d seen the smile. That was enough. He winked to let her know that he knew.

To his amazement… and delight… the wench made an obscene gesture at him.

Odin’s Blood! He was going to enjoy taming her… though not too much. A little taming, that’s all he wanted.

“What are you grinning about?” Bolthor asked, coming up to his side.

“A little taming,” Rurik disclosed.

Bolthor glanced from him to Maire, then back to him again. “Who will be taming whom?” Bolthor asked.

Rurik glared at his skald. “Did you come here for a reason, or just to provoke me?”

Bolthor smiled lopsidedly at him and scratched his head as if he was not sure. The dolt! But then he revealed, “Yea, I had a reason. The MacNab is waiting in the bailey to speak with you. He is unarmed and alone.”

“Well, why did you not say so?” Rurik scolded and rushed outdoors, but not before he heard Bolthor practicing a new saga, which started out with the usual “This is the saga of Rurik the Greater,” an introduction that made him cringe every time he heard it.

Rurik was a soldier fierce.

Many an enemy his sword did pierce.

Thus garnered he great self-pride

That none would dare deride.

So armed, the foolish man did boast

From coast to coast to coast

That not only his enemies could he tame

But, as well, a fair dame.

The problem was the dame was no mare,

But a maiden, oh, so fair.

Maire the Fair would not be tamed…

Note ’en by a warrior so famed.

In truth, some advised Rurik to take great pains,

Lest he be the one in reins.

But he would not listen,

Though tears of mirth on his friends did glisten And so it came to pass that Rurik the Vain became… Rurik the Tame.

Rurik scowled at his skald. Bolthor merely shrugged and said, “It needs some work.”

“It needs scrapping,” Rurik muttered and stepped outside into the lowering sunshine. Evening would be approaching soon, and he and his men had not yet bathed or supped.