Free Dark Viking by Sandra Hill Page B

you‟ve made a few mistakes, they can‟t really complain.”
    All of a sudden, Sigge burst out, “I am so glad that you have finally arrived. My aunts will be pleased, too.”
    “Your aunts, the witches?”
    Sigge nodded vigorously.
    “Let me get this straight. You and your two aunts practice witchcraft here, and nobody objects?”
    Sigge nodded. “Because we are good witches. Some are more cautious with me, however, since I sometimes make mistakes.”
    “You said you‟re glad that I  finally  arrived?”
    “My aunts predicted your coming months ago. That is why I was able to arrive in time to offer my services to you.”
    Rita put a hand to her head where the two lumps were starting to do a drum duo. Da, dum!
    Da, do. Da, dum! Da, do! People were staring at her in her strange attire . . . sleeveless man‟s tunic and tights, bare feet, ashes marring her arms and probably her face, sweaty hair plastered to her head. Why Lady Thora would think any man would want her was beyond Rita.
    “For sennights now, they have spoken of the bright light of the future melding with the blue shadows of the past,” Sigge blathered on. “Opposites will meet and explode, creating a new life for Norstead, which has been like a barren woman for many a year. Beautiful but empty.”
    “And I‟m supposed to be that light?” She laughed, too tired to cry. “Well, I better go take a bracing bath so I can be ready for the explosion.”
    The explosion didn‟t come for another week.
    She’d done some crazy stunts before, but this was ridiculous . . .
    With Sigge introducing her as the “light” everywhere they went over the next few days, she was welcomed as some kind of savior, rather than the sea monster pariah the Lord of Norstead had deemed her before his departure.
    Not that Norstead needed a savior far as she could see. It was a well-run, prosperous Viking-style estate. A wooden fortress castle, but more than that. The landscape was dotted with well-tended farmsteads and longhouses with thriving fields of oat and barley, fat cattle, poultry, sheep, and goats, all within a valley. Through this valley, and over one palisaded rise, a road led down to the massive Ericsfjord with its wharves, docks, and places for beaching the watercraft over the winter months. You couldn‟t see the water when at the castle, but Rita could smell its fresh semi-saltiness, the fjord being one of thousands of tributaries to the North Sea.
    This settlement was unusual for the Norselands, apparently, which was not conducive to farming with its rocky landscape and harsh climate. Someone had worked diligently over the centuries to make this place hospitable for sustenance. Not self-sufficient entirely because they couldn‟t raise their own produce in great quantity, but still pretty damn impressive.
    In outbuildings there was a blacksmith, carpenter, cobbler, weavers, dairymaids, sheep shearers, and God only knew what else. Not to mention an impressive stable. The men of Norstead were expert amber harvesters, and once a year they traveled to the Baltic, where they gathered and brought back a shipload of the stones to be marketed in trade for all the goods that could not be produced in the cold Norse climate.
    The surly Steven apparently ran a well-run ship, and that didn‟t just refer to longships, of which there were twenty, not including the dozens he had taken with him off to battle pirates.
    Largely, he relied on well-placed, designated people to carry out his orders. Arnstein, the steward who ran the keep—that‟s what they called the huge fortress-type home in this neck of the woods—like clockwork, with every single person having a job from chambermaid to raker of hearth ashes. Brighid, the no-nonsense head cook who had a staff of two dozen to help in preparing and presenting the vast amounts of food needed for such large numbers . . . three hundred when all were at home. The castellan Geirfinn made sure there was plenty of weaponry on hand and