“What? Why are you looking at us?” Tykir said with mock offense. “Every time something goes awry you think I had something to do with it.”
“You usually do,” Eirik responded.
“Shhh,” Alinor cautioned. “Do not wake the child.”
“Uh-oh! Big trouble coming!” Abdul repeated.
“Did you order more gifts to be delivered here?” Eirik narrowed his eyes menacingly at his brother. Tykir was ever up to some deviltry or overindulgence. “Do you not think you are overdoing the Viking gift-giving custom?”
Tykir told his brother to do something vulgar, the whole while grinning at him. “Didn’t you like the leather boots with bells on them that I ordered for you from the Eastlands?”
“They are red, Tykir. Red. And I do not much relish jingling when I walk.”
“Really? Alinor has a garment that jingles, and I like it a lot.”
Alinor made a tsk-ing sound with her tongue.
“You could always wear the jingling boots and naught else. Eadyth would like that, I wager.”
His wife, the traitorous wench, said, “Hmmmm,” and winked at him.
“On the other hand, I did like the amber navel ornament you sent for Eadyth,” Eirik said, waggling his eyebrows at Tykir. His brother was a far-famed merchant in the Baltic amber trade.
“Will you two never stop teasing each other?” Alinor shook her head ruefully at the two brothers.
It always amazed Eirik that Tykir had chosen Alinor for his wife. With her bright orange hair and rust-colored freckles dotting her entire body… well, she was not the beauty he would have expected his womanizing brother to pick. But Alinor had turned out to be the perfect foil to Tykir’s personality. And Tykir considered her the most beauteous woman in the world, which was the important thing, of course.
“They’re like two small boylings,” Eadyth agreed.
“Milords, ladies, I must insist,” Wilfrid interrupted with a pained expression. “The cart. It contains three nuns, and two of them are most unusual… big as oak trees they are, and one of them a leper.”
“Uh-oh! Big trouble coming!” Abdul repeated.
“Would someone kill that bird?” Alinor said.
“Bowlegged harpy!” Abdul opined.
“A le-leper,” Eadyth faltered, ignoring the interchange with the bird.
“But that’s not all,” Wilfrid went on. “Eirik, the two big ones told me to give you, personally, a message. ‘Sister Tostina and Sister Bolthora have arrived.’ That’s what they said.”
“Huh?” Eirik, Tykir, Eadyth and Alinor all exclaimed at once.
“Uh-oh! Big trouble coming!”
“I have a wonderful recipe for parrot stew,” Alinor said sweetly.
“Bowlegged harpy!”
Then of a sudden an idea seemed to come to Alinor. She gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “Bolthora… could it be Bolthor?”
Eirik’s heart went out to Alinor, and his brother, too, for that matter. They still had trouble accepting the death of their longtime friend, Bolthor the Skald.
“And Tostina… could it be Toste?” Eadyth asked, also with a gasp.
Eirik recalled how hard they’d all been hit by the news of the Battle of Stone Valley. So many of their Norse comrades had fallen that day, but most especially they’d grieved for Bolthor and the twins, Toste and Vagn.
“Bolthor, Toste and Vagn all died at Stone Valley,” Eirik pointed out softly. “We have discussed that battle at length since Tykir arrived. We all miss our fallen friends. What a cruel jest someone plays on us.” He reached over and squeezed his brother’s forearm. There were tears in Tykir’s light brown eyes.
“But what if it’s not a jest?” Alinor said, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
“Tostina and Bolthora… that is too much of a coincidence,” Tykir said, already handing his sleeping child to a flustered Wilfrid to hold.
Within seconds, all four of them were rushing out of the solar, down the staircase, across the great hall and out onto the courtyard steps. They came to a screeching halt at the shocking sight they beheld.
In the middle of the cart seat was Sister Margaret from St. Anne’s Abbey. Nothing unusual about that. Sister Margaret and Eadyth had often conferred over the years about the best methods for making mead. In fact, a friendly rivalry of sorts existed between them over who made the best mead in all Northumbria.