The Bewitched Viking - Viking I 04 by Sandra Hill

Author:Sandra Hill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-06-04T22:49:31+00:00

crooked staff. With a cry of distress, Anlaf pulled his battle shield off the wall and held it in front of his midsection. Many men throughout the hall did likewise.

"Oh, for the love of Mary!" Alinor reiterated.

"Mary? Who is this Mary the witch keeps calling upon?" Anlaf inquired. "Is it perchance the high-witch?"

"King Anlaf! For shame!" the priest who'd been sitting with Adam exclaimed. Tykir had met him before. Father Caedmon was his name. ' 'Did you not take your baptismal vows seriously when I christened you last year? Mary is the mother of God."

"Oh, that Mary." Anlaf's face turned red under his blond beard. Leastways, what could be seen of his face behind his shield, which he still held in front of his body.

"Enough of this prattle!" Tykir roared, waving his sword in the air. "Assure me of Lady's Alinor's safe passage home, and I will be on my way to Dragonstead."

"Sheath your sword, Tykir," Anlaf ordered, his eyes peering above his massive shield. "Is the witch worth losing your life?"

' 'What makes you think I will be the one spilling wound dew?'' he said icily.

"That is why the butter would not come this morn," one slovenly maid servant called out from the doorway leading to the scullery. "I knew there was a bad aura in the air. 'Twas a sign of the witch's approach." As she talked, she was scratching her head, which was no doubt lice-ridden. In Tykir's opinion, the butter probably had not come because the lazy wench had not churned hard enough.

"Beware of her familiar," one man cautioned. "Where is it?'' He and others at his table were pivoting their heads this way and that, trying to discern the familiar.

"Her familiars are back in Britain," Bolthor informed them. "They are sheep."

"Do you say she has more than one familiar, and that they are sheep?'' asked a powerfully built woman sitting at the high table. 'Twas Anlaf's older sister, Gudny. "She must be a very powerful witch."

"A spell she has put on my dog, Beast," Rurik noted, despite Tykir's warning that he hold his tongue. "Me-thinks she may have made Beast one of her familiars, too."

Gudny seemed impressed, and was assessing Alinor through narrowed, speculative eyes. Everyone knew that Gudny, who was as tall as a man and as strong as a horse, had been searching for a love potion these many years in hopes of luring her wayward husband Alfrigg back to the bed furs. 'Twas said she had an insatiable appetite for swiving--though Tykir could hardly credit that, more like an insatiable appetite for eating--and Alfrigg had chosen instead to live amongst the monks on a leper island.

Throughout the great hall, a murmur of fear and outrage was passing in waves, emanating from the spot where Alinor still stood with Bolthor and Rurik. People who had been sitting closest stood and moved away, putting hands or arms over their faces so the witch could not give them the evil eye ... and over then- private parts, as well.

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