Help me, Odin. I am dying here. “Don’t you think it’s a mite crude to speak so of your daughter?”
“I mean her no disrespect. Just don’t you do her any disrespect.”
“And how would I do that?”
“By failing to offer for her.”
“I told you, I am going to, in my own good time.”
“Would ye like some advice, boy?”
“Nay.”
“Do not give her a choice. Women claim to want a choice, but they really want a man to take over.”
“In a million years, I cannot imagine Helga wanting no choice. She would clout me over the head for daring to take over her life, even if I wanted to, which I do not.”
“Our forefathers had the right idea. Toss a wench over your shoulder and carry her off to your lair.”
“I have no lair.”
“My lair is your lair.”
“Aaarrgh!”
Gorm slapped a hand over his burly chest suddenly and exclaimed, “Oh, Oh! Methinks it is my heart again. Methinks I will not live to see a wedding, let alone my first grandchild. Best you stop dawdling, boy.”
Vagn would have felt sorry for the old man if the slyboots weren’t shifting his eyes guiltily. “You fraud! Stop swilling ale and eating fatty sausages, and your chest pains will disappear like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.
Gorm changed direction then, after trying to pull a fast one on him. “Mayhap there will be a Christmas wedding yet. You’re half Christian, aren’t you? Pray.”
“I am not going to pray for a Christmas wedding. Not to the Norse gods, or to the Christian One-God.”
“You need all the help you can get, boy.”
“I do not.”
“I will pray for you then.” As Gorm swaggered off, well-satisfied with the lackwit advice he had given him, Vagn heard him mutter, “A father’s work is never done.”
On the road again… almost…
Carts were piled high with chests and supplies outside in the bailey, awaiting the start of the trip to Ravenshire. Horses were shifting restlessly. Guardsmen muttered amongst themselves, anxious to get on their way.
Still, Helga sat on a chair in her solar, as if all the world could wait for her… which it must. There was no way she was getting on anything that moved, whether it be cart or animal, till her stomach settled down.
Vagn walked into the solar and approached her. She could see the concern on his face. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “My stomach is just a bit queasy. Probably the start of my monthly flux,” she lied. Despite all that she and Vagn had shared in bed, she found herself oddly embarrassed to discuss such bodily functions.
He seemed to accept her explanation, but shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Well, this delay gives me time to say something I have been wanting to say to you for days.”
She waited, but he still did the foot-shifting exercise. Tilting her head to the side, she asked, “Are you all right?”
It must be his wounds hurting him again and he does not know how to tell me he will stay behind.
Nay, ’tis worse than that. He will go with us to Ravenshire, but he will not be returning to Briarstead with us after the visit. It is over. Oh, my gods and goddesses! It is over.
She really did feel like throwing up then.
But wait. Vagn was doing something that caused her even more concern. He dropped to one knee before her and took one of her hands in both of his. “Helga, there is no smooth way for me to say this, except, Will you marry me?”
“What?”
“Now, now, sit still and hear me out. Do not say me nay till you hear my proposal.”
“Vagn, please, you know how I feel—”
He put the fingertips of one hand to her lips. “I wish to take you for my wife. I want to protect you under my shield. I want to stop sneaking about at night. I want to wake beside you in the morning. I want to make love with you whene’er I wish without having to hide. I want to have children with you. I want to grow old with you.” He shrugged at his inability to express himself better. “Will you marry me?”