“You’ll get your coin after I see if your potion works.”
Hah! She’d known Efram would pull something like this. “You’ll get no potion until I have my sack of gold. And don’t be thinking of coming back and stealing back my treasure. I have friends in these woods with swords sharper than any blade of yours.” Which was a lie, of course. She had no friends. “Besides, my cousin’s cousin who works at Winterstorm has orders to poison your own drink if you even try to betray me.”
“Why, you . . . you . . . ,” Efram sputtered, and his hairless cheeks blossomed with color. “How dare you insult me so?”
She shrugged. “’Tis just business, my jarl. Now, do you have the gold or not?”
Grudgingly, he parted his fur cloak and pulled out a leather sack tied to his belt. He tossed it on the table in front of her. “Do you want to count it?” he snarled.
“For a certainty,” she replied with exaggerated sweetness. And she did in fact count out the fifty lovely coins.
While she was counting, his eyes darted about her small house, and his lips curled with distaste. “What is that horrible smell?” he asked, glanced toward the boiling cauldron over the fire.
It was cabbage soup, which was indeed smelly, but delicious. “Oh, just a porridge of rat tails, lizard hearts, pig snouts, sour milk, and oats,” she told him. “Wouldst care for a taste?”
He gagged.
“Here is the potion then,” she said, taking a stoppered pottery vial the size of a fist from a nearby shelf. “Be very careful. One drop would kill a war horse,” let alone a full-grown man. ’Twas a mixture of deadly nightshade and water hemlock. “Because it is sweet, it will mix well, undetected, in any fermented beverage, like ale.”
He nodded and reached for it, but she held it away from his grasp. “If you intend it for more than one person . . . ,” and she knew that he did. Not just his uncle, but everyone in his party. “. . . then you must be especially careful. This vial in a tun of ale could be accidentally tasted by innocent parties, even women and children filling the horns of ale. Just one drop on the finger dipped on the tongue would be fatal.”
Efram waved a hand airily and grabbed for the vial.
And Regina knew that he cared not who died in the process of his evil plot. She also knew that her own life was in danger once this was over because she was the only person who could disclose his plans. Ah well, she would be long gone by then.
Before nightfall, she had packed all her belonging, including her hoard of coins, onto the back of Edgar, her donkey. She’d bathed in a forest pool, tucked her bush of wild red hair into a thick braid, and donned one of the used lady’s gowns she’d purchased in the market town of Kaupang. She would ride all night until she reached the harbor at Evenstead where she would sell Edgar. From there, she would take one of the merchant ships to the Saxon town of Jorvik.
She set her hovel afire before she left. Let the village folks think another witch had gone to her Satanic grave. She’d tried to leave the cat behind because he would draw attention, but the lackwit creature refused. Instead of rubbing himself up against her and purring with entreaty, Thor had pissed on her new boots and spit up three hair clumps to emphasize his disdain for that idea. Cats were like that betimes.
She’d traveled half the night when her plans hit a snag. Thor, who had wrapped himself around her neck, his head and tail resting on her bosom, hissed an alert. Mayhap a cat companion was not such a bad idea after all.
Standing directly in her path, an apparition appeared, a full-body glow of light against the blackness of the dense forest. It looked like an angel Regina had seen one time painted on the walls of a Christian church in Northumbria.
“Have you no shame, witch?” the angel roared.
Double, double, toil, and lots of trouble . . .
Michael was sick to his archangel ears of Vikings.
He’d never been fond of the vain, arrogant, brutal Vikings. But then, five years ago, God assigned him to put together a band of Viking vampire angels (vangels) to fight Satan’s evil Lucipires (demon vampires). His appreciation hadn’t increased with close proximity to the bothersome creatures. Especially those seven Sigurdsson brothers who’d been guilty of the Seven Deadly Sins in a most heinous way. ’Twas like trying to herd cats.
And for his sins, Michael had to admit, he was not overfond of cats. His pal, St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, would be disappointed in him. But ever since that Noah and the Ark debacle, Michael just couldn’t seem to abide felines. Truth to tell, two cats had entered the ark and seventy-five emerged when the floods receded. What did that say about cats?