Ruby jogged at a slow pace so that Tyra could keep up. She tried to follow the river as much as possible and steered away from the business district.
Even this early, the industrious inhabitants of Jorvik moved about the day’s business. Thralls and housewives had already done their laundry and were laying the garments out to dry on bushes and lower tree limbs. Ruby wondered what Gyda would think of a suggestion to put up a clothesline. She didn’t want to overwhelm the Vikings with her modern ideas, although a clothesline hardly counted as an amazing invention.
When they had gone as far as some farms on the outskirts of town, Tyra showed Ruby a plot of land where Olaf kept farm animals. A beautifully maintained vegetable garden occupied a large part of the site, surrounded by an orchid of apple, peach, pear and plum trees. Heavy clusters of purple grapes weighed down a grape arbor.
Olaf’s family—in fact, most of the Vikings she’d seen thus far—were apparently very self-sufficient. Ruby found that domestic image hard to reconcile with her picture of Vikings as bloodthirsty villains riding the seas. Thinking of King Sigtrygg, though, Ruby concluded they were probably both.
Take Thork, for instance. No matter how noble the profession of Jomsvikings, when you got right down to it, he was a professional soldier. He killed for a living. Ruby’s stomach knotted at the thought.
Ruby and Tyra sat on the grass resting as they ate an apple and a peach each and watched the cows grazing contentedly nearby. Ruby spotted a small boy peeping from behind one of the trees. She smiled. Tykir had followed them from Olaf’s house.
“Tykir, come and join us,” Ruby invited warmly.
At first, Tykir hesitated; then he walked forward shyly. Ruby offered him some fruit. He took the peach without hesitation and bit into it hungrily.
Like father, like son, Ruby thought.
When he finished and boyishly wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt, he complimented Ruby, “You tell good stories.”
“I’m glad you liked them.”
“Do I really look like your little boy?”
Ruby nodded.
“Are you my mother?”
Ruby’s heart lurched and almost broke at his revealing words.
“He asks everybody that question,” Tyra interrupted with a disgusted snort. “The answer is ever the same. He has no mother.”
Ruby knew that Tyra didn’t intend to be mean, but her childish cruelty hurt Tykir, nonetheless, as evidenced by the tears that welled in his eyes. Ruby put a gentle hand on Tyra’s shoulder and chastised her softly, “That’s not true, Tyra. Everybody has a mother.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts.”
Ruby couldn’t help herself then. She folded Tykir into her arms and pressed his head against her breast in comfort. Thork definitely had a lot to answer for in the neglect of this child—both children, actually.
“Perhaps we better start back now,” Ruby advised. “We’ve been gone longer than I expected.”
The three of them jogged back slowly, with the children answering all of Ruby’s questions about the intriguing sights they passed. When they neared the house, Ruby saw Gudrod and an obviously furious Thork and Olaf approaching while Gyda and the girls stood outside the front door wringing their hands in worry.
“Tyra, Tykir, go into the house—immediately,” Olaf ordered coldly. They both obeyed without question, although Tykir looked back over his shoulder at Ruby fearfully.
Grabbing Ruby’s forearm roughly, Thork pulled Ruby toward the house. Neighbors stood outside on the street watching the spectacle.
“You don’t have to drag me. I can walk.”
“Yea, but will you be able to when I am done with you?” Thork’s voice shook with anger.
“You wouldn’t dare touch me.”
“Would you like to make another wager, wench?” Thork jeered icily.
Ruby sensed he was dead serious. His fingers held her arm in a pincerlike, painful grip. She tried to shrug away unsuccessfully. Ruby tried to fathom the stormy emotions raging behind Thork’s piercing eyes. What happened to the man who’d looked at her so warmly last night at the dinner table, who’d smiled at her children’s stories, who’d pinched her playfully before he left? Was he as unpredictable in his moods as the volatile King Sigtrygg?