“What mean you?” Esme asked.
“Have you never been in a Viking household over the yule season?”
“Nay,” she answered hesitantly, though she could not imagine anything out of the ordinary in the well-ordered Ravenshire keep. Both its lord and lady were renowned for their hospitality and well-run affairs.
“Sweetling, you may never be the same,” Toste promised, with a pat on her head which pressed her closer to his twitching manpart.
That is for sure.
Let the good times begin…
“Swive me silly, you luscious Viking, you. Awk!”
Four heads in the upper solar of Ravenshire turned to look at the caged bird in the corner. Then three of those heads turned toward Tykir Thorksson.
By the bones of St. Boniface! Will my brother ever grow up? Eirik Thorksson, the lord of Ravenshire, wondered. He couldn’t help smiling, even as he shook his head ruefully. “Have you been teaching Abdul perverted sayings again?”
“What’s perverted about swiving? And everyone knows we Vikings are luscious,” Tykir answered with a grin.
God, I have missed my brother and his warped sense of humor. With all the bad news lately, a bit of mirth is more than welcome.
“Isn’t that so, Alinor? You think I’m luscious, don’t you?” Tykir asked his wife, who had the good sense to ignore him. Tykir and Alinor had come from the Norselands to spend the yule season at Ravenshire this year, along with their four children, who were off somewhere being entertained by Eirik’s seventeen-year-old twins, Sarah and Sigrud.
“Of course, Eirik is only half Viking; so, he is only half luscious,” Tykir continued, ducking away when Eirik tried to swat him with an open palm.
“Show me yer legs, Al-i-nor. Awk, awk.”
“Tykir!” Alinor exclaimed with a laugh.
“Kiss my arse and call it pretty. Awk, awk.”
“Hey, I didn’t teach the lousy bird that one,” Tykir protested.
“Eirik did.” It was Eadyth speaking now, Eirik’s lady-wife. “And don’t call my pet lousy. He has no lice. And remember, Tykir, you are the one who gave me Abdul as a bride-gift at my wedding.”
“Who would have thought it would have lived this long?” Tykir said.
“Dumb lackwit Viking!” the bird said.
They all laughed then, but were soon cut short.
“M’lady… Eirik… you have got to come see this,” Wilfrid, the seneschal of Ravenshire, urged breathlessly as he rushed into the room. It was late afternoon, and Eirik had thought his friend and comrade would be in the great hall enjoying a cup of mulled ale by now. “A cart just pulled into the courtyard.”
Eirik did not immediately rise. He’d spent the entire day working on battle exercises with his men in the bitter cold, then helping to dig a dung cart out of a snowbank, followed by a bath, and, frankly, his forty-nine-year-old body couldn’t take much more. He was very content indeed to sit before the hearth fire with his feet propped up and a cup of mead in his hands, Listening to his brother’s nonsense. Eirik was getting too old to keep going at this rate, but he had no sons to take over for him, other than his adopted son John who had work enough on his own estate at Hawks’ Lair. And none of his four daughters seemed about to bring any new male blood into the family.
“A cart?” Eadyth inquired indifferently. She did not rise, either. At forty and three, she was still a beautiful woman, even though her silver-blond hair was mostly silver these days. ” ‘Tis probably those new candle molds and pottery jugs I ordered from Jorvik.” Eadyth was a successful beekeeper and merchant, renowned for her time-keeping wax candles, honey and mead. Not for the first time, or the hundredth, in the past eighteen years, Eirik told himself how fortunate he was to have her.
“The… the cart,” Wilfrid stammered. “It’s filled with barmy folks.”
“Uh-oh! Big trouble coming!” Abdul squawked.
Eirik and Eadyth immediately looked at Tykir and Alinor. They were equally ensconced in comfortable chairs before the fire, awaiting the bell announcing the evening meal. Their two-year-old son Selik slept soundly on Tykir’s lap. Tykir was forty-seven, and his bones probably ached as much as Eirik’s after their grueling day of work, though he would never admit to such weakness.