It was only midday when she returned to Jorvik, so she decided to look for Eirik at the harbor. She had gone but a short distance when she saw Tykir talking to a group of sailors who were loading a ship. With regret, she realized that he was preparing for a trading voyage. Would Eirik be going with him? she wondered miserably.
When Tykir saw her, his eyes brightened and he ended his conversation, sending the sailors off on some errand. “Eadyth! How wonderful to see you!” Opening his arms, he pulled Eadyth into his embrace. Then Tykir held her at his side with an arm looped over her shoulder and took her onto his ship.
“Where is he?” she asked immediately. “Have you seen Eirik?”
“Yea, of course I have seen him. He works on his ship near here. But Eirik went to Wessex yestereve to see King Edred and has not returned yet.”
“Will he be back today?”
He shrugged. “Eirik is not himself, Eadyth. He tells me naught.”
“I worry about him. My lies and the things Steven told him…” She broke off, unable to continue.
Tykir brushed some wisps of hair off her forehead with brotherly care. “He was shocked by Gravely’s disclosure. I will not deny that. We both were. But he has come to accept that he could have done naught to change the course of Steven’s life. We did not know of Steven’s existence when we were boys, and Eirik would have been only five when Steven was orphaned.”
She nodded. “And my lies? Will he forgive those?”
“Eadyth, really, just give Eirik time. He is a somber fellow, but—”
“Somber! Somber! Why dost everyone refer to Eirik as somber? The man is a rascal and you know it.”
“A rascal? Eirik?” He studied her for one long moment, then declared, “He must love you if he shows a rascally side to you and no other.”
It was much the same thing Selik and Rain had told her. But then Eadyth alarmed Tykir and surprised even herself by bursting into tears. Well, she told herself on a snuffling hiccough, she had already retched up her stomach’s contents this morning. Now she was crying her eyes out. And soon, while she sat on a wine cask on Tykir’s deck, spilling her heart’s contents regarding her missing husband, she ate three apples, four honey cakes and twelve dried figs.
He gawked at her, astounded at her appetite. “Does the loathsome lout know?”
“Know what?”
“That you carry his ‘loathsome lout of a son’?”
She looked up quickly in surprise at Tykir’s insightful remark. “Nay, and do not tell him. I will not have him return to me out of obligation.”
An hour later, Tykir walked her back to her agent’s home. On the way, Tykir stopped suddenly at an eastern merchant’s stall, his eyes twinkling mischievously.
“I think I know the very thing to lure your husband home.”
“What?” she asked suspiciously.
When Omar, the trader, showed her the product that Tykir requested, Eadyth’s mouth formed a small “o” of wonder. “Do you think… nay, I could not… never… well, if you really think so.”
* * *
Eirik did not return to Jorvik that night, nor the next morning, and Eadyth began to panic. Tykir had told her that he would make sure Eirik came to her the minute he arrived, even if he had to truss him up and carry him. Eadyth was growing quite fond of her endearing brother-by-marriage.
Was it possible that Eirik had returned to Jorvik and refused to see her? After all, Tykir could not really force Eirik to do something he did not want to do. Or perchance he had come back to the city and had never gone to his ship. What if…
Eadyth reeled with pain at the possibility that Eirik might be with Asa, his former mistress. She could not sit and wait any longer. Eadyth dressed carefully in a pale lavender gunna over a cream-colored chemise. She left off the wimple, but wore the sheer violet head-rail she had worn for her wedding. A thin gold circlet held her head-rail in place, matching the gold-linked belt cinching her waist. She thought she looked quite well, considering her inner turmoil… until she got to Coppergaie and found Asa’s jewelry stall, that is.