Ruby gave Olaf the message. He introduced her quickly to his wife before giving Gyda a quick kiss on the cheek and rushing out.
Olaf’s great hall, about one hundred feet in length, had a freestanding, rectangular-shaped hearth in its center, about ten by four feet and four feet off the ground, open on all sides. It obviously served as both the heat source and the cooking fire for the household. Smoke escaped through a hole in the high ceiling.
Gyda kept an immaculate home, including the clean and fragrant rushes that covered the hard-packed dirt floor. Not a bit of clutter could be seen anywhere. The Viking household efficiently stored kitchen utensils and wooden dishes on pegs and shelves built near the fireplace, as well as hanging from the roof beams. Wooden vats and barrels holding butter, cheese, curds and milk lay open near the cooking area.
Woven cloth drapes stretched across the walls to hold out the drafts that would inevitably gust into the room during the winter. Built-in benches lined the two longer sides.
Spacious sleeping lofts were located on the second floor at either end of the room. Underneath, on the first floor, at one end there were smaller sleeping chambers, presumably for the two female and three male thralls Ruby saw working around the hall, setting up trestle tables and laying out plates and soapstone oil lamps. At the other end, a loom and spinning wheel dominated a cozy sitting area, which contained a half-dozen armed chairs, covered with soft cushions.
Eirik and Tykir played some kind of board game off to one side of the room. Although they wore the same loose trousers and handwoven cloth shirts, they’d scrubbed their faces and slicked back their too-long, wet hair. Ruby yearned to go to them, but halted at Gyda’s warning look.
When Gyda finished giving directions to two female servants in the meal preparation, she told Ruby, “I bid you welcome to my home, Ruby. Tyra will show you to a guest chamber where you can refresh yourself afore dinner.”
Tyra led Ruby upstairs to the small chamber which was to be her home for the time being. The plain, cell-like room had only a small pallet, a chest for storing clothing and a wood table holding a pottery pitcher and bowl filled with water, as well as a soapstone oil lamp. Two linen towels lay over a chair.
“Mother says I am not to pester you,” Tyra commented, lingering in the doorway, obviously hoping Ruby would invite her to stay.
“Oh, I don’t think a sugarplum like you could ever be a nuisance,” Ruby stated truthfully. “You’re too sweet.”
Tyra flashed another of her engaging, gap-toothed smiles and asked, “How many children do you have?”
“Two boys,” Ruby answered without hesitation. “Eddie and David.”
“Do you miss them?”
“Very much.” Ruby hadn’t had much time to dwell on her sons. Her heart ached at the prospect of never seeing them again. How would they manage without her? Of course, Jack would come home, but did they think she was dead? Or what?
No! Ruby refused to think about all that now. Survival was the number one priority. After that, she’d find a way to return to the future. If that failed, then and only then would she somehow deal with her loss.
Just like she would have had to deal with her separation from Jack. Oh, Lord, was it only today that he’d left her? Or a lifetime ago?
“Will you tell me the saga of Hansel and Gretel again?” Tyra begged sweetly. “After dinner?”
“Of course, sweetheart… if it’s all right with your parents. But they might not like me telling you stories.”
“Nay!” Tyra said quickly. “They love tales ever so much. We all do.”
After Tyra left, Ruby removed her clothes and washed herself all over with the linen towel and a white, unscented soap, like the kind her great-grandmother made out of wood ashes for laundry. After she dressed, Ruby went downstairs where the meal was being placed on the tables.
Olaf, who’d just returned, sat at the head of the table, with Gyda on his right and Ruby on the left. The girls sat on either side of the trestle table, and Thork’s sons sat beyond them.