When Thork turned his clear blue eyes on her, surprise at her appearance flickered over his face. He nodded almost imperceptibly as his steady gaze held hers for several long moments. Like his thunderbolt, a wave of warm feeling seemed to crack from him to her, nurturing the slender thread of affinity that somehow linked them.
Then Ruby noticed the woman at his side. The same bimbo from the harbor! Ruby clenched her fists at her sides and forced herself to turn away.
The banquet lasted more than three hours, with course after course of fine foods, excellent wine and hearty ale. While servants cleared the tables, people moved into clusters, waiting for the entertainment to begin. Astrid talked shyly with Selik under Olaf’s watchful frown. The king and his party moved down off the dais, including the buxom blonde who hung on to Thork’s arm possessively.
Jealousy ate like acid through Ruby’s bloodstream, and she hated herself for it. Why should she be jealous over this Viking? He wasn’t really her husband. Was he?
The woman reminded Ruby of someone. Oh, no! Not Dolly Parton! It would be too much of a coincidence if Thork and Jack preferred the same type of woman. Not that Jack had been serious when he spoke of looking for a woman with a Dolly Parton body. He was only teasing, Ruby told herself.
Servants arranged dozens of chairs at the bottom of the steps for the most elite. Olaf pulled her and Gyda to the edge of the crowd and lifted them both by the waist so they sat on the edge of the platform. Many people dropped onto the wide, low benches built into the sides of the hall. Other Vikings talked softly in small groups.
The entertainment began with a young Viking woman who sang a beautiful ballad, accompanied by her brother on a lute. Then a skald, or poet, related stories of Viking bravery in battle. His sagas told of a brave people driven from their homeland by bloody politics and overpopulation, forced to seek new lands for their families—certainly a different motivation than the bloodlust that historians claimed drove the Norsemen to go a-Viking.
One of the sagas told an interesting story about Thork’s father, King Harald of Norway, and how he got the name Harald Fairhair. The skald started by telling of Harald’s feats, the greatest of which was the unification of all Norway.
” ‘Tis said that his greatest success resulted from the taunt of Gyda, daughter of the King of Hordaland.” Ruby looked over to Gyda to ask if she was named after this woman, but Olaf’s wife was totally engrossed in the tale and didn’t notice her. Ruby also cast quick peeks at Thork who sprawled, legs outstretched, in an armchair near the king, his lips curled cynically. Perhaps the story wasn’t entirely true.
The skald claimed that Gyda refused to marry the young Harald until he united all Norway, as Gorm had done in Denmark. Harald swore never to cut or comb his hair until he achieved his purpose. It took him ten years to become high-king. After he bathed and trimmed his hair and beard, his name changed from Harald lufa—Harald Mop-Hair—to Harald harfagri—Harald Fairhair. Gyda then went willingly to his bed, joining what the skald described as a royal harem of wives and concubines.
“Dragon shit!” Thork’s rude expletive echoed loudly through the hall, where the crowd had been following the skald’s saga with silent appreciation.
Sigtrygg turned to Thork and asked, “Do you scoff at the skald’s saga?”
“Yea, that I do. The end results wax true, but think you, who know my father’s cunning, that the whim of a mere maid steered him ever?”
Sigtrygg thought a moment, then agreed. ” ‘Tis right you are, Thork, but it makes for a good telling.” Then he turned to the embarrassed skald and asked, “Know you more?”
“Yea, but naught do I know of the sagas’ truth,” he whined. “I only relate what has been passed on to me.” The skald looked at Thork, wondering if he would find fault with this story, too. When Thork ignored him, staring disinterestedly into his cup, he went on.