The Reluctant Berserker by Alex Beecroft Read Free Book Online
Authors: Alex Beecroft
right. We should have paid for lodging. We can afford it, and you should have a bed softer than this sharp ground.”
“That silver is to tide us over when I can walk no more,” Anna mumbled. “Which is soon, but not yet. We will need it more then, for you will leave me and find a lord to serve, and I will pay for some good wife to nurse me to my grave.”
In the heart of the fire, three round, granite rocks nestled like dragon eggs. Asc took one between iron tongs and, lifting it out, dropped it into the nearest salt pan, where it sank with a hiss and a bubbling. After some fishing in the milk-white water, he picked out a second, now cold, and set it gently down at the edge of the flames to ease into warmth before it went back into the hottest embers. When he had done, he traded the tongs for a paddle on the end of a long stick, and scraped the salt on the bottom of the pan—soft as new butter—to the sides.
While he laboured, Leofgar took the tongs in his turn and brought a second stone out of the fire. He pulled his spare tunic out of his bag, wrapped the glowing thing in it and placed it in Anna’s lap, folding his master’s hands around it. Anna opened one eye. Despite his weariness, there was a wry twinkle in it.
Leofgar smiled in return, painfully fond. “You know I’ll do nothing of the kind. We will find a lord together, who will take us both. Then I will take care of you. Are you not my father, that I should leave you behind? Don’t ask it of me.”
“Yet you left your own sire without a backward glance.” Anna smiled to take the sting out of the words. “You are a wanderer at heart. And perhaps I should find a lord to praise with my remaining hours and leave you to walk the earth alone, being thrown out of mead halls for picking fights with men twice your size.”
Distracted, Leofgar grinned. The taste of that victory remained sweet, despite his guilt. “We scops are beholden to no one,” he said, taking out the parcel of bread and meat and pastries he had purloined from the hall, sharing it with Asc, Anna and the other two silent ones. “We are masters of our own craft, who have attained skills and knowledge those butter-fed bruisers could never imagine. Why should we scrape to them as though they were saints, or humble ourselves as if to the holy ones of God?”
“Ah.” Anna brought his knees up so that he was more firmly curled around the hot stone. “I thought it must be your fault that you and he were at odds.”
“He walked into me and demanded I apologise.”
“You could not have feigned regret, though it might have spared you a bruising?”
Leofgar edged as close to the fire as he could get, so that when slow, grassy sparks drifted out they landed on his cloak and singed it brown. He propped up his feet against the hearthstone and watched steam rise from his shoes, as his warming feet tingled and his ears throbbed with returning blood. It was better to think on his adventures this evening than it was to look too closely at his diminishing future.
“He…” It was better still to conjure up the warrior’s face in his mind. He’d been a big man, yes, half as wide again as Leofgar and all of it muscle. But he had a generous, feminine mouth, plump in the lips like two silken cushions. More than that, he had worried eyes.
The mouth might have been a fluke—a moment of whimsy on God’s part—for why shouldn’t the creator have a little fun now and again, gifting the burliest of men with incongruous beauties? The eyes, though… He hadn’t seen the colour, but he had seen the doubts, the thought, complicated and cautious, as out of place in the brutal young man as his woman’s mouth.
“He seemed the sort who would take a joke,” Leofgar finished, abruptly changing his mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this after all. “I swear, if I had thought him a complete arsehole, I would have kept my head down and been as meek as you please. I am not altogether in
“That silver is to tide us over when I can walk no more,” Anna mumbled. “Which is soon, but not yet. We will need it more then, for you will leave me and find a lord to serve, and I will pay for some good wife to nurse me to my grave.”
In the heart of the fire, three round, granite rocks nestled like dragon eggs. Asc took one between iron tongs and, lifting it out, dropped it into the nearest salt pan, where it sank with a hiss and a bubbling. After some fishing in the milk-white water, he picked out a second, now cold, and set it gently down at the edge of the flames to ease into warmth before it went back into the hottest embers. When he had done, he traded the tongs for a paddle on the end of a long stick, and scraped the salt on the bottom of the pan—soft as new butter—to the sides.
While he laboured, Leofgar took the tongs in his turn and brought a second stone out of the fire. He pulled his spare tunic out of his bag, wrapped the glowing thing in it and placed it in Anna’s lap, folding his master’s hands around it. Anna opened one eye. Despite his weariness, there was a wry twinkle in it.
Leofgar smiled in return, painfully fond. “You know I’ll do nothing of the kind. We will find a lord together, who will take us both. Then I will take care of you. Are you not my father, that I should leave you behind? Don’t ask it of me.”
“Yet you left your own sire without a backward glance.” Anna smiled to take the sting out of the words. “You are a wanderer at heart. And perhaps I should find a lord to praise with my remaining hours and leave you to walk the earth alone, being thrown out of mead halls for picking fights with men twice your size.”
Distracted, Leofgar grinned. The taste of that victory remained sweet, despite his guilt. “We scops are beholden to no one,” he said, taking out the parcel of bread and meat and pastries he had purloined from the hall, sharing it with Asc, Anna and the other two silent ones. “We are masters of our own craft, who have attained skills and knowledge those butter-fed bruisers could never imagine. Why should we scrape to them as though they were saints, or humble ourselves as if to the holy ones of God?”
“Ah.” Anna brought his knees up so that he was more firmly curled around the hot stone. “I thought it must be your fault that you and he were at odds.”
“He walked into me and demanded I apologise.”
“You could not have feigned regret, though it might have spared you a bruising?”
Leofgar edged as close to the fire as he could get, so that when slow, grassy sparks drifted out they landed on his cloak and singed it brown. He propped up his feet against the hearthstone and watched steam rise from his shoes, as his warming feet tingled and his ears throbbed with returning blood. It was better to think on his adventures this evening than it was to look too closely at his diminishing future.
“He…” It was better still to conjure up the warrior’s face in his mind. He’d been a big man, yes, half as wide again as Leofgar and all of it muscle. But he had a generous, feminine mouth, plump in the lips like two silken cushions. More than that, he had worried eyes.
The mouth might have been a fluke—a moment of whimsy on God’s part—for why shouldn’t the creator have a little fun now and again, gifting the burliest of men with incongruous beauties? The eyes, though… He hadn’t seen the colour, but he had seen the doubts, the thought, complicated and cautious, as out of place in the brutal young man as his woman’s mouth.
“He seemed the sort who would take a joke,” Leofgar finished, abruptly changing his mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this after all. “I swear, if I had thought him a complete arsehole, I would have kept my head down and been as meek as you please. I am not altogether in