Page 98 of My Fair Viking

That's when the dumb dolts of the world

Need the advice of all their friends.

Thus sayeth Bolthor the Skald."

Alinor found Adam the next morning coming from the garderobe, where he had been hurling the contents of his stomach for the past hour. His head felt as if it had been cleaved with a broadax. And he swore there was hair growing on his tongue.

"Not now, Alinor," he warned. "I cannot take any lectures this morning."

She reeled back a bit, no doubt from the stench of his breath, not his words.

But then she handed him a goblet and said in a surprisingly kind voice, "Drink this. It will make you feel better."

He took the goblet from her and sniffed. He recognized some of the herbs that would indeed help alleviate the head pounding and stomach nausea. He downed the drink in one long swallow, then exhaled with a loud belch.

"Come," she said and led him over to a stone bench. The air was cool and they were both wearing fur-lined cloaks.

He sat beside her, as miserable as he had been before he'd started his drinking bout. "Where's the babe?"

"Asleep. With his father." She smiled. "Tykir imbibed a bit too much, too."

"What a mess I have made of my life!"

"Yea, you have," she said bluntly. "But that is a good start… admitting your mistake."

"You're going to give me advice, aren't you?" He groaned softly at the prospect.

"Did you tell her how you feel?"

He shook his head, and felt as if there were rocks rolling about inside his skull. "I do not know how I feel."

"Yea, you do, dearling. You just haven't admitted it to yourself yet. As far as I know, the only thing of substance you told her was that you would take her babe away from her… if it should be born."

He looked at Alinor, then shrugged sheepishly. "That was rather overbearing of me, wasn't it?"

Alinor nodded. "As Rashid has been saying, 'Even the strongest team of oxen cannot take back ill-chosen words once spoken.' In any case, did you ever consider what place she might have in your life, or you in hers?"

"Well, I did have one thought. When I operated on her father, she was a magnificent assistant. She did not blanch at all the blood, or hesitate to handle tools. In truth, she anticipated what I would need before I asked."

"So you are saying that you two might have made a good healing team?"

"Mayhap."

"And what did she say when you suggested this to her?" Alinor stared at him for several long moments. Then she grunted with disgust. "Let me guess. You never shared that idea with her."

Both of them sat in silence then, staring off toward the harbor where a longship was being prepared for travel.

"Let us cut to the marrow here, you thickheaded fool," Alinor finally said. "What… do… you… want?"

He did not even hesitate to answer. "Tyra."

"Well, then," Alinor said, throwing her hands up in the air, "you have your answer."

He smiled for the first time in a day and a half and yelled for Rashid, who was walking toward him from the courtyard.

"Yea, master? You called," Rashid replied dolefully.

"It appears we are going back to the Eastlands, after all."