The Viking Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the ship sunk. He wanted to and thought he should cry, but now the tears would not come. Perhaps in the few short days he had with his father, he had become a man after all.
    *
    “Ye brought us a Viking, Kannak, and now the horse be gone.” In the darkness of the cottage, Jirvel stood in the doorway to her bedchamber, took a deep breath and tried to hold back her ire.
    “He agreed to help us.”
    “And ye believed him? He be a Viking, Kannak.”
    She hung her head. “I am sorry, mother. I will walk to the village for what we need tomorrow.” Kannak could not stand to hear the hurt in her mother’s voice, sat down on her bed and took off her shoes. “I am too hungry to think. Is there nothing to eat?”
    “Milk.”
    “I am sick o’ milk and cheese. Be there nothing more?”
    “Not unless we kill a chicken.”
    It was useless. The chickens only laid one egg a day as it was; killing one meant fewer eggs to eat by half and that would only make things worse. She stretched out on the bed, pulled her cover up and closed her eyes. “I will think o’ a way out o’ our troubles tomorrow.”
    *
    By the time the horse took Stefan back to the cottage, the candle light had been distinguished and it was dark inside. He quietly dismounted and watched the horse wander off, then tried to find a place to sleep for the night. In the dim moon light, he spotted a structure that was little more than a roof, a back wall and two posts holding up the front of the roof. He moved some baskets out of the way and sat down.
    Yet with no cover to keep him warm and a thousand thoughts running through his mind, sleep avoided him. He remembered the pouch filled with coins, pulled it out from under his tunic and examined the contents. He removed two coins, dug a hole near one of the front posts and buried the pouch. Then there was nothing to do but wait for dawn, which would come early this far north, just as it did in Norway. Soon he would find it difficult to go to sleep in the daylight, but for now a short night would be a blessing. And while he waited for dawn, he realized that somewhere in the middle of the ocean, he turned fifteen.
    *
    Sh e was dreaming; she had to be. The glorious smell coming from the pot placed directly in the embers of the fire in the hearth was so magnificent, she dared not open her eyes for fear it would dissipate into a mist so light a breeze could carry it away.
    “Kannak, wake up. He be back and we have food.”
    She dared to open one eye and then slowly opened the other. The magnificent smell was not a dream and she could not help licking her lips in anticipation. Then she spotted Stefan sitting at the table watching her with a grin on his face.
    “Wake up, wee bairn,” he said.
    Annoyed at being called a baby, she abruptly sat up and glared. “From which o’ our neighbors did ye steal this food?”
    Stefan ’s grin turned to a scowl of his own. “I neglected to ask his name.”
    “Ye have brought a curse down upon us. There be a penalty in our clan for stealing and we will al l be dead afore the noon meal.”
    “If that be the case, I suggest we eat all the evidence.”
    Jirvel was a striking woman at twenty nine with her daughter’s same color of hair, although her eyes were blue and the years of hard work had robbed her of her youth. As her daughter did, she wore a long, gray striped unbelted frock made of wool.
    It was Jirvel ’s custom to watch and listen to people before she made up her mind to like them and so far, she believed she was going to like Stefan very much. He had, after all, come back, he looked to be a strong boy and he had weapons. Already she felt safer.
    She turned the hot bread over once more in the pot, poked a hole in it to make sure it was done and reached for a bowl. The boy had a way about him that was pleasant and she was enjoying their banter. Stefan was exactly what her daughter needed. With no siblings, the girl had gotten away with far too much for far too