by Sandra Hill
“Did I not tell you to stay at Gyda’s ’til I sent for you?”
“Yea, ye did. Ye surely did, m’lord. But Gyda made us leave. Said to tell ye that she raised eight babes of her own and she be too old to have these noisy, pesky, dirty varmints raining havoc on her home. Oh, and coarse-mouthed, she called them too,” Ubbi added, leveling a look of condemnation at Adam who was gawking with interest at Selik’s exposed body.
Selik groaned, pulling the furs over his male parts, and glared at Rain, whose lackwit idea it had been to open an orphanage.
“And another thing,” Ubbi added, looking with offended eyes at Rain, “that Ella was hangin’ over me like a hungry dog on a bone. Didst you promise me to her, as she claims? Am I a side of beef to be bartered?”
“Rain! Oh, nay, do not say you are matchmaking atween Ubbi and Ella?” Selik said with astonishment. “Do you not know that Ubbi has been running from Ella’s salivating clutches for years?” But then he remembered how his loyal servant had betrayed him of late and added, “On the other hand, mayhap you need a forceful woman to control you better, Ubbi.”
Ubbi inhaled sharply with outrage.
“So, do ye like stickin’ it in her?” Adam interrupted them idly, one hand on a jutting hip and his eyes glued with undue interest to Rain’s half-exposed breasts where the fur had slipped. She immediately pulled it back up.
All eyes locked on Adam then, unable to believe he would ask such a blunt question.
“What? Why are ye all gawkin’ at me? I was only askin’. Bloody hell! How is a boy to learn things if no one will answer an honest question?”
“Someone ought to wash your mouth out with soap,” Selik declared ominously.
“The witch already did,” Adam snapped, glaring at Rain, then turned back to Selik, “Did she do the same to you—wash out yer mouth with soap? You use the same foul words as me.”
“I have to make pee-pee,” Adela said suddenly at Adam’s side. He took her hand, leading her to the chamber pot in the far corner.
“Pee-pee?” Selik choked out.
Adam looked at Selik over his shoulder. “The witch sez we cannot say piss anymore. ’Tis too crude.” The little boy’s voice rang with disgust. He helped his sister adjust her tunic and led her back toward the gaping group, adding disdainfully, “Pee-pee is bad enuf, but ye should hear what she calls it.”
“It?” Selik asked, then wished he had not.
“A too-too,” Adam declared flatly, looking down at the vee of his braies. He folded his arms across his chest, shooting an I-told-you-I-was-gonna-tell look at Rain before nodding in self-satisfaction. “And she sez we have to wash every day, every bloody day, and clean our teeth, and say our prayers, and learn to read and write, and do our chores, and so many damn rules me head spins.”
Selik looked at Rain’s blushing face, then put his head into both of his hands and groaned. His well-ordered life was crumbling around him. A short time ago, all he wanted was to kill Steven of Gravely and mayhap a few Saxons, then die. Now, he was saddled with a guardian angel from the future, a servant who believed he got messages from God, a dozen orphans, and a boy who had to be related to Lucifer himself. How would he ever escape this quicksand of a life?
Looking up, he saw Adam sit down before the hearth, stoke the fire, then proceed to ignore them all and play idly with Rain’s Rubik’s Cube.
And, worst of all, he solved the puzzle.
The next afternoon, Selik insisted on accompanying Rain to the hospitium for her usual rounds. They both wore the monks’ habits, as before.
Selik was not in a good mood. The weather had turned frigid last night, even for early November—too cold for him and Rain to sleep in the loft. Which meant twelve squirmy, squealing, curious bodies had slept beside them, not to mention a loudly snoring Ubbi on a nearby cot. And Selik did not even want to think about Adela, who had crept into the pallet between him and Rain during the night and snuggled up against his chest like a frightened kitten.
“I still say, it’s unsafe for you to be prowling the city streets with so many Saxon soldiers about,” Rain complained for what had to be the hundredth time.
“I would much rather face a troop of bloody Saxons than stay one more minute in that madhouse back there.”
“You’ve seemed restless all day, Selik. I’m afraid to ask this, but are you leaving soon?” She looked up at him from the shadow of her monk’s cowl with eyes so hopeful that Selik had to restrain himself from taking her in his arms and promising anything that she desired. But that he could not do, and not just because the sight of two monks embracing near the minster steps would horrify the passersby.
“I expect word today from Gorm on Steven’s whereabouts. He will meet me at Ella’s shop.”
He saw the fear in Rain’s eyes, but she bit her bottom lip, restraining her usual protests. He w/as oddly touched that she tried to curb her shrewish tongue for his benefit.
“Well, I’m not going to fight with you over this anymore. Oh, don’t look so pleased with yourself. I still don’t agree with you. I just don’t want to waste any more of the little time we have together.”
“What will you do after I’m gone? Return to your home?”
Despair flashed briefly across her face before she masked it and lifted her chin bravely. “No, as long as I know you’re alive somewhere, I’ll stay. Probably continue going to the hospitium every day and run the orphanage, if you’ll let us stay on your property.”
“And if I never return?”
Rain’s bleak eyes locked with his and she seemed to swallow hard before speaking. “I don’t know.” Then she seemed to force her mood to lighten and poked a finger in his chest. “But know this, you stubborn Viking, if you are alive somewhere, hiding from me, I’ll find you. Maybe even kidnap you again.”
“Nay, you would not dare do such again. I forbid it.”
“Not even if I captured you so I could have my way with your body?” she asked, slanting a look of exaggerated sultriness at him.
“Well, mayhap,” he conceded with a grin.
Just before they entered the side door of the hospitium, Rain put a hand on his sleeve to halt his progress, and said nervously, “Before we go inside, there’s a little something I need to tell you.”
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Whenever Rain used that tone of voice and mentioned “a little something,” it usually meant she wanted a favor, or he was not going to like what she said.
“Bernie has the hots for me,” she said, blushing.
At first, his mouth dropped open. He snapped it shut with a grunt of disgust. Truly, the wench had a knack for surprising him. “I think I can guess what ‘the hots’ are,” he remarked when he finally got his amazement under control, “but who in the name of Thor is Bernie?”
“Oh, you remember Father Bernard—the young priest we met that first day, the one with acne—zits—all over his face.”
“And you have become so familiar you call him Bernie?”
“Not familiar, really. He’s so young. I just humor his crush, but I don’t want you to get upset if you notice him putting the make on me.”
“Rain, I have no idea in the world what you just said. But if he dares to lay one finger on you, I will knock his rotten teeth down to his toes.”
She started to protest, but Selik pushed her through the doorway and gave her waist a proprietary squeeze. Unfortunately, Father Bernard was standing there, ready to greet the target of his ‘hots’, with wounded eyes riveted on Selik’s intimately placed hand. With deliberate deviltry, Selik looked the monk straight in the eye and spread his palm, moving lower to Rain’s right buttock, which he grasped suggestively.
Rain jumped and turned on him.
He told her baldly, “Begging your pardon, Brother Godwine. I was reaching for the door handle.”
Rain was not fooled one bit by his fake innocence, although Father Bernard accepted Selik’s explanation. The first chance she got, she hissed at Selik, “Door handle?
Hah! How would you like it if I grabbed your handle?”
“I would like it fine,” he said with a wink. “In fact, you may pump my handle any time you like.”
“Tsk! Behave yourself, Selik, or I’ll never get anything done here today.” In her assumed husky voice, she said, “Father Bernard, you remember Brother Ethelwolf, don’t you?”
Unaware of their whispered exchange, the young priest ignored Selik and turned to Rain. “You have not been here for days,” he complained. “Father Theodric has been asking for you. Did you not promise to discuss brain fevers with him?”
“Yes, but I’ve been busy at the orphanage and couldn’t come ’til now.” Rain tried hard to keep her voice low and husky to hide her sex.
“That orphanage! Why do you waste your talents with the filthy Danes? They are naught but little heathens,” he whined, and Rain felt Selik stiffen behind her. She pinched his arm in warning.
“They are God’s children, Father,” she chastised the young priest, “no matter their origins.”
“Well, I still say ye should reside at the minster. We could always find a place for you to sleep.”
“I wager he could,” Selik whispered near her ear. “Under his scrawny body.”
She flashed Selik an admonishing look, afraid he would betray their disguises.
“Brother Godwine! Brother Godwine!” Father Rupert called out to Rain. When they approached the pallet where he knelt, she saw that the deathly ill girl was now sitting up.
Father Rupert beamed at Rain. “You were right. A change in diet was all Alise needed. Her father will be corning to take her home today.”
Rain knelt beside Father Rupert and examined the girl she’d diagnosed with Celiac disease her first day at the hospitium. Alise was still far too thin, but with care, she would recover with no ill effects. “Now you do understand, Alise, that you cannot ever, for the rest of your life, eat grains again? Even one bite of bread could set your disease off again.”
“Will I ne’er get better?” the little girl asked tearfully.
Rain shook her head. “But isn’t it a small price to pay for feeling well again?”
Alise nodded, and Rain told Father Rupert to make sure the girl’s father understood the disease and the importance of a strict diet.
For hours, she worked side by side with the culdees, examining the patients, listening carefully to their diagnoses and remedies, many of which came from the revered Bald’s Leechbook prepared about twenty-five years earlier. Surprisingly, many of the recipes they followed proved effective, even by modern standards, especially the herbal ones. Rue was used as a capillary anti-hemorrhage agent. Henbane, known to modern doctors for its properties in blocking nerve fibers and as a hypnotic, induced sleep. Pennyroyal settled the stomach. Woodruff and brooklime, both rich in tannin, relieved burns when applied in butter with the root of a lily.
Her biggest complaint was against the widespread practice of bleeding for almost every ailment. But she followed Selik’s advice on observing, offering minor advice, but doing nothing to call attention to herself as a modern physician.
Occasionally, she even forgot that Selik accompanied her and would look up suddenly to see him leaning lazily against the wall, his finely honed Viking body a spectacular picture, even in a monk’s garb. How could anyone miss his beautifully sculpted face, his gracefully long fingers, his beautiful smile?
“What is that wonderful scent?” Father Bernard asked suddenly, sniffing near her cowl.
“’Tis Brother Godwine’s Passion,” Selik answered devilishly as he took her arm and moved her down the aisle.
Father Bernard just gaped after them, stuttering, “His…his…did you say passion?” He practically drooled.
Finally, disgusted with Selik’s snide remarks, Father Bernard commented testily under his breath, “Why does the big lump not get down on his knees and help, instead of standing around idly?”
But Selik overheard him and commented boldly, “I am observing, Bernie, for our book.”
Father Bernard’s face colored, highlighting the pus-filled pimples that dotted his face. “Methinks Father Ethelwolf’s arrogance is unseemly for a priest,” he complained to Rain. “And frankly, it appears to me he is observing more than he should.”
Rain looked up then and noticed, just as Father Bernard had, that Selik’s appreciative eyes were fastened on her posterior as she bent over to pick up a wad of linen.
She hissed to get Selik’s attention, but instead of being embarrassed at being caught in the act, he winked. He winked. She heard Father Bernard make a low, strangling sound, and Rain realized she had to get Selik out of there before he gave them both away.
“We’ve got to go, Father Ethelwolf,” Rain announced suddenly, pulling on Selik’s sleeve. “I just remembered that we must stop at the mercer’s to purchase more cloth for the children’s tunics.”
“Oh, but you cannot leave yet,” Father Bernard protested. “Father Theodric will be here shortly.”
That was just what Rain was afraid of, especially with Selik being so blatant in his attraction toward her. The highly intelligent Father Theodric saw too much. Already he raised questions she couldn’t answer about healers in Frankland whose names she didn’t recognize, about how she’d gained her vast medical knowledge, and even about her feminine characteristics.
“You must pray that God will help you control your baser instincts,” he’d told her once after she shrieked girlishly when a mouse darted over her foot in the minster herbarium. He referred to what he must consider her effeminate nature. If he saw her with Selik, the sexual chemistry that sizzled between them whenever they moved within looking distance would undoubtedly cement the idea in his head.
“Tell Father Theodric that I will see him tomorrow, and we can discuss brain fevers and the vaccinations I mentioned to him. I will have plenty of time, since Father Ethelwolf will be unable to accompany me.”
“Huh?” Selik asked, looking up from the bag of food he was examining near the door. “Why will I be unable to come with you?”
“You will be transcribing all your mental notes onto parchment. For our book. Remember?”
He waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Ah, I can do that anytime. We will discuss that later.” He turned then to Father Bernard. “But now I want to know who is responsible for the pig swill you have been giving Brother Godwine as his laece-feoh—the physician’s fee?”
Rain turned to Selik with surprise. She hadn’t realized that he knew about the rotting food the priests sent for the orphans.
Father Bernard’s face turned bright red. “’Tis not a physician’s fee, just a gift, a favor from the minister to the orphans.”
“Are you saying, Bernie, that Brother Godwine’s healing skills have no value?”
“Nay, I ne’er said such. But well, ’tis good enough for the scurvy lot,” he mumbled defensively, pointing to the food. “Leastways, ’tis the same food we priests eat each day.”
“Ah, then that is different,” Selik said with a resignation Rain knew was false. “You will not mind then having a bite of this.” He reached in the cloth bag and pulled out a hunk of pork that smelled to high heaven.
Father Bernard backed away but Selik followed, pushing the putrid meat in his face, against his lips.
“Selik,” Rain protested, pleased that he defended her, but afraid he would attract undue attention.
Selik ignored her pulling hands and told Father Bernard icily, “Do not ever dare to give Brother Godwine such spoiled food again. Dump this in the cess pit. ’Tis not good enough for the dogs in the street.”
He shoved away from the shaking priest angrily and grabbed Rain’s arm, pulling her through the door.
“Selik, we have to bring food back for the children. I’m sure I would have been able to salvage some good things from that bag.”
“Nay, you will not. You need not beggar yourself by accepting charity from such tight-fisted clerics. I will buy all that you need.”
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br /> And, much to the delight of the Jorvik merchants, he did. In the end, he hired a wagon to cart all their goods back to the farmstead—fresh beef, ten live laying chickens, a milk cow, raw vegetables, crisp apples, mead, honey and flour.
“Selik, people are going to wonder where a monk got so much money,” she whispered worriedly as he once again pulled out his pouch of coins at a merchant’s stand.
He responded by telling her, loud enough for the merchant to overhear, “Brother Godwine, are you truly sorry that I stole the bishop’s hoard he was saving for a new jeweled chalice?” When she eyed him warily, he went on. “Even you must admit, the orphans cannot eat gold and garnets.”
The merchant muttered under his breath in agreement, “Bloody priests! Care more fer jewels than the poor.” To show his support, he threw in a couple of extra loaves of bread.
“See. I have some uses,” Selik boasted as they headed toward Ella’s shop.
Rain couldn’t help but smile then, and Selik smiled back at her in all his glorious beauty. Her heart filled with all the love she felt for him. She wanted to say so many things to him, but didn’t know how. So many feelings blossomed within her. She wanted to shout to the world her wondrous love for this man, and to hug it to herself in secret savoring. This was the love of a lifetime—a thousand lifetimes!
Was this why she had been sent back in time? She had thought she was sent to save Selik, but maybe this love was just a gift from God. If so, how was she to help Selik?
Love.
Rain cringed at the return of the voice in her head. Love? That’s all? How can love save Selik?
Love begets love, child. Love begets love.
Rain groaned aloud.
“You have that look on your face again, sweetling, and you are muttering. Talking to God, are you?”
Rain shot a look of disgust at Selik and his too perceptive observation. “Yeah, and he sent a message for you.”
“Oh, really!” Selik laughed. “Do not tell me that Ubbi and I are both blessed with these miraculous messages of yours.”