The Viking Takes a Knight - By Sandra Hill Page 0,2

in his gnarled right hand, but it was more for a walking stick. No matter! Ingrith was well-armed with sharp daggers at her belt and ankle, and she knew how to use them.

Truth to tell, Ingrith was still an attractive woman. It was her no-nonsense personality, rather than her appearance, that repelled most men, who preferred biddable women. She was happiest when she was organizing a kitchen and all the cooking, some said like a military commander. And she satisfied her maternal urges by caring for the orphans at Rainstead, an orphanage located outside Jorvik.

With blonde hair braided and wrapped into a tight coronet atop her head, Ingrith did her best to hide her tall, embarrassingly voluptuous figure with a modest, long-sleeved gunna under a calf-length, open-sided apron. She wore her usual prim expression on her face.

“As fer that,”—Ubbi was still blathering on whilst she had been woolgathering—“that Saxon commander, Leo of Loncaster, is certainly smitten with you.”

Ingrith made a grimace of distaste at the reminder of the soldier, who persisted, despite her continual rebuffs. Lately, although she did not see him often, he had become vile in his attentions.

“Could we proceed?” Ingrith urged, suddenly nervous.

It was not that the market town was dangerous, especially during daylight hours, but it was crowded. And there were evil men who preyed on young children for the sex-slave trade. Those same men resented the children’s shelter, which offered refuge to what they considered a commodity. In addition, the city was home to numerous thieves able to slip a pouch of coins from people’s belts without them noticing. Godwyn had perfected that particular talent before being “rescued.”

Jorvik, at the confluence of the Foss and Ouse Rivers, which led out to the North Sea, was once the site of the Roman city Eburacum, or what the Saxons still called Eoforwic. It had been held as the capital of Northumbria by Vikings off and on over the past two centuries, most recently as ten years ago when the Norse king Eric Bloodaxe had been driven away. For the time being, Saxon earls ruled in King Edgar’s place, and the clomp-clomp of the garrison soldiers’ boots could be heard as they patrolled the streets in groups.

“Stay close. Hold hands,” she warned as they approached the minster steps, where two young monks were tossing out hunks of bread to the destitute who crowded there every morning.

“Why are the monks’ heads bald only on the top?” five-year-old Breaca asked.

“’Tis called a tonsure,” Ubbi explained.

“A ton-sore? Oh, do they have sores on their heads, like Aelfric’s flea bites? Listen to the bells. ’Tis like angel music. Remember the story about St. Michael the Archangel?” Betimes, Breaca chattered away like a magpie.

“I would like to see an angel some day.” Seven-year-old Arthur sighed, and the other children nodded.

“I would not want to be a priest,” Godwyn asserted. “They cannot tup girls.”

“Godwyn!” Ingrith exclaimed.

“What? ’Tis true.”

“The boyling has a point,” Ubbi agreed with a chortle but still tapped Godwyn on the shoulder with his lance.

“What is a tup?” Emma asked.

“That is when—” Godwyn started to say.

But Ingrith cut him short with another “Godwyn!”

He ducked his head sheepishly, but he would probably be regaling the other children later with misinformation.

Motioning with her hand, Ingrith encouraged them all to move on behind her.

The city, which housed ten thousand people inside its walls, was laid out in an orderly grid of streets, best known as gates in the Norse language, such as Petergate, Stonegate, and Goodramgate. The Coppergate section, where they headed now, hosted dozens and dozens of craftsmen, merchants, and traders, many of whom lived in small, horizontally timbered or wattle-and-daub houses with neat front yards where tents and tables were set up to sell their services and wares. The children’s heads swung left and right, mouths agape, as they took in all the sights. Jewelers, blacksmiths, tanners, shoemakers, glassblowers, seam-stresses, lace makers, wood-carvers, knife and scissor sharpeners, barbers, potters, silver- and goldsmiths, weavers, candle makers, and so many more, including those women practicing the art of orfrois with gold and silver thread on bands of silk. Sometimes a damsel would weave strands of her own hair onto the patterns as a special gift for a lover.

In truth, the goods offered appealed to one and all, from ells of cloth in fat bolts as well as ready-made garments of samite silk, fine Northumbria wool, linen, and rough homespun. Horseshoes, swords and knives. Arm rings and amulets. Thimbles of all sizes and materials. Live animals: