Thork understood what she meant instantly and laughed, shaking his head from side to side. “You have a gift, wench, for pulling me from my bad humors. ‘Tis your way with those silly words. What will you come out with next?”
“Well, I did think of something that might save me with the Thing?” She looked up at him hopefully.
“And what, pray tell, might that be? I hope it does not involve me in any way,” Thork said with a wary smile, knowing she had a knack for surprising him.
“Don’t be sarcastic. It just occurred to me that since there are Christian churches in Jorvik I could seek the protection of the church. I’ve read about that in historical novels.”
“You would go into a nunnery,” Thork hooted and began to laugh uproariously. Dar and Aud looked back to see what amused Thork, but he dismissed their interest with a wave of the hand. Still chuckling, he told Ruby, “I can just see you wearing the staid religious garb with that ‘teddy’ underneath. ‘Twould be enough to make the saints turn over in their graves.”
Thork burst into another fit of laughter and called Dar back to share in his mirth. When they began howling at the picture of Ruby in a nun’s robe, she stomped away.
It wasn’t that funny.
Ruby and Aud looked at each other in disgust and both said at the same time, “Jerks!” Then they erupted with their own peals of laughter.
It ended up being four days before Ruby’s case was called. By then she shook with nervousness and broke out in tears at the least provocation, especially because of the brutal punishments she’d witnessed so far. Six thieves had had their right hands chopped off before the entire assembly. They’d stoned an adulteress. A thrall who had killed his master had been decapitated, a sight Ruby refused to watch. While Aud agreed the punishments were gruesome to witness, she couldn’t understand Ruby’s condemnation of the process since the victims had been given “fair” trials.
Finally it was her turn. Dressed in her best clothing, the burgundy tunic dress Dar had given her, with Byrnhil’s emerald pendant, Ruby stood to the side while the law speaker called out her “crime.”
“Ruby Jordan, you are accused of being a spy for Ivar. What say you?”
“I am not guilty.”
“Are those your supporters behind you?”
“Huh?” Ruby turned in surprise. Lined up behind her were Dar, Aud, Olaf, Gyda, Selik, Byrnhil, and… Ruby’s heart lurched… Thork. His solemn eyes held hers for a moment before he nodded slightly, and she turned back to her accusers. “Yes,” Ruby replied meekly, tears filling her eyes. She wasn’t sure what their support meant but she thanked God for it.
The law speaker read off the long list of complaints against Ruby: that she’d shown up in Jorvik mysteriously, had no logical explanation for her background, wore a shirt that appeared to be a message from Ivar, preached birth control to their women and, in essence, could be a spy for one of their enemies. When he held the T-shirt up for the assembly’s inspection, a rumble of outrage rolled through the crowd at the words Brass Balls.
“What say you in your defense?”
“I come from America, a land beyond the Atlantic Ocean,” Ruby explained, trying to avoid mention of the future, not even sure if they called it the Atlantic Ocean then. “I’m lost but I’m certainly not a spy for anyone. Other than the shirt, which has no meaning whatsoever except for childish humor, I don’t think there’s any evidence to prove I’m a spy.”
“What say you to the charge that you want to kill off our young?”
“That’s ridiculous!” Ruby exclaimed, then clenched her fists to calm herself and the increasing stridency of her voice. “I don’t favor killing babies, either in or out of the womb. The only reason I mentioned birth control at all was the ladies in Jorvik were talking about a young woman who had ten children and who was in danger of dying in childbirth. I thought such a female could benefit from birth control information. I still do.”