Thorkel nodded hesitantly. “Gods willing, it won’t be necessary.”
Any further discussion on the subject was curtailed by several children, including Kugge, running into the hall, shouting, “Visitors coming! Visitors coming!”
When they went outdoors, wearing heavy cloaks and mittens against the ice and snow—not just them, but practically everyone in the keep—they saw Farle and the missing sledge that had gone west more than three sennights past in hopes of purchasing food products from any estates or markets with excess. Farle’s wagon sledge was piled high with goods.
But that wasn’t all.
There were three more sledges behind him, piled equally high, and behind them a drover leading two cows and several goats.
“Bless the gods!” Girda was heard to remark.
“Who is that woman?” Thorkel asked, peering through the snow. “Frigg’s foot! I think it’s Princess Reynilda.”
“Who is Princess Reynilda?” Andrea asked.
“The horniest maid in all of Hordaland,” Cnut remarked.
“Who used to be betrothed to Cnut,” Thorkel noted with a chuckle.
Cnut gave Thorkel a dirty look and said, “I thought she married Jarl Esgar.”
“She did, but he died recently. Some say from too much bedsport,” Girda contributed. “She better not be havin’ sex in me scullery like she did last time.”
“Who was she having sex with in the scullery?” Andrea asked with narrowed eyes.
“Yea, who?” asked Dyna, who’d just come up beside them.
“Not me!” Cnut and Thorkel both said at the same time.
“I suspect this is going to be a very interesting yule season,” Cnut said, putting his arm around Andrea’s shoulders.
“Hmm,” Andrea said, shrugging away as she tried to get a better look at Reynilda, who was being helped down from her seat on the wagon sledge. Then Andrea muttered, “Oh shit!”
Reynilda was stunning, no doubt about it. She wore a red cloak lined with white ermine. Her black curls emerged from the hood, which was also trimmed with the precious fur, framing a perfect heart-shaped face. She was beautiful, no doubt about it. Red Riding Hood in a bustier, so to speak. And devious as the Big Bad Wolf.
“Cnut! Beloved!” the woman said, opening her arms as she rushed toward him.
Beloved? What a load of you-know-what! He was the one who said, “Oh shit!” then. And he had no choice but to open his arms, too, for a welcome embrace.
When he glanced back, he saw that Andrea was gone.
That night, during his homecoming feast, Reynilda sat on his left side at the high table, chattering away inanely, as if they were still betrothed, touching his sleeve, batting her eyelashes as if in a sudden dust storm. And Andrea was missing. Cnut couldn’t help but notice that there were no honey-glazed doughnuts. And he didn’t tingle. Not one bit.
Later, he slept alone in the guest bedchamber from which Andrea was also missing. When it became clear she was not joining him, and he wasn’t about to embarrass himself by hunting for her, he put a bar across the door.
Women! Would he ever figure them out?
Not even in a thousand years, a voice in his head said. He was probably talking to himself.
There are red-eyed Lucipire monsters, and then there are green-eyed monsters. Both formidable creatures . . .
Andrea was so angry, she could spit, and so jealous, she could spit green. From the get-go, the lovely Reynilda drove her, and everyone else, bonkers.
On the surface, she was all sweetness and innocence, but a cunning brain worked behind those baby blue eyes. Andrea would bet her favorite frosting spatula on that.
“You don’t mind if I take your bedchamber, do you, Cnut? It’s the biggest, and I have so many garments.”
Cnut hadn’t said anything, so Andrea had proceeded up the stairs and removed her own belongings, scant as they were.
The designing Reynilda’s sly eyes had taken note of the fact that Andrea had been sharing Cnut’s bed and she said, all honeyed innocence, “Andrea . . . that is your name isn’t it? How quaint? Would you please unpack my bags, and be careful of the gold-threaded robe? The threads have a tendency to break. Oh, you’re not a servant? So sorry. Tee hee hee! What are you, exactly?”
Cnut (suddenly deaf and dumb) hadn’t uttered a word, so Andrea had said, “A cook.”
“Good. Make sure there are no turnips or anything made with turnips at the high table for the yule feast tomorrow night. You are having a feast, I hope, since this is the first night of winter solstice. Neeps give me a rash.”
Once again, Cnut the Mute hadn’t said anything, even though Andrea had rolled her eyes at him.