Part 25 (1/2)
He gave her a long look, as if to say it was about time she gave concern to her father.
”He is fine,” he said, addressing everyone in the room. ”Methinks he will awaken soon.” In an undertone,
Tyra thought he added, ”if he hasn't already.”
”That is wonderful news,” Tyra said. ”It will gladden my heart to leave the Norse lands knowing my father will recover.” ”Can you not wait another day?” Adam's question was asked with little inflection in his voice. To Tyra, that meant he did not care one way or another.
She shook her head. ” 'Tis time for the ritual.” Everyone stepped back to give her room. She stood at her father's side and began once again. ”I, Tyra, daughter of Thorvald Ivarsson, do hereby renounce-” ”Nay!” a booming voice p.r.o.nounced. It was the king. With a snarl of disgust, he sat bolt upright in his bed. ”Have you all gone barmy?” he snarled, and tried to disentangle himself from the furs that had covered him. ”Must I do everything myself... even coming back from the dead?” He leaned wearily against the pillowed headboard.
”Father!” Tyra and all her sisters exclaimed and converged on his bed to give him hugs and kisses.
”Leave off! Leave off!” he protested. ”You will smother me.”
”Step back,” Adam ordered. ”Let me examine the king.”
As he leaned over the old man, she heard her father ask, ”And who be you? Ye have the look of a
b.l.o.o.d.y Saxon about you?”
”I am Adam the Healer. And, yea, a Saxon. The very one your daughter Tyra kidnapped to come save you.”
”That you did. That you did,” the king acknowledged. ”And my thanks you have in abundance.”
”Father, now that you are on the road to recovery... do not take this personally... you have been a
good father... most times, least ways... but I want to renounce our blood ties, and-”
He muttered something like, ”when snow falls in Valhalla!”
Tyra sighed. ”You owe me this favor in return for bringing the physician.”
Her father raised his hand in a halting fas.h.i.+on. ”Not now Tyra. You will not bedevil me with this
nonsense the moment I escape the raven's fate.”
”It is not fair, I tell you. You cannot keep putting me off. You cannot put my sisters off.” It was unlike Tyra to argue with her father, especially in these circ.u.mstances. But she needed to act, and soon.
”I will handle it, daughter. Trust me, dearling. Just this once. One more day will make no difference, will
it? I promise this situation will be resolved, and soon.” Her father's voice was weakening, and she recognized that she was not helping matters by forcing an answer now.
”One more day. That is all,” she agreed.
Her father nodded, though he muttered under his breath, ”Obstinate, unbiddable girl!
”I would ask you all to take leave of me so that I may rest,” he said then. But first he turned again to Adam. ”Ask any boon of me and it is yours.”
Adam thought for a long moment, then said, ”Transport home. I ask for one longs.h.i.+p to take me home... now... afore winter...”
The king nodded. ”It is done. And a fair request it is, too.”
Tyra's heart sank. Unreasonably. Whether she left first for Byzantium, or he left first for Britain, the result would be the same. Separation... and soon.
”... and I insist that the captain of that longs.h.i.+p-” there was a long pause-”be your daughter Tyra.”
A stunned silence filled the room before Tyra gasped and said, ”Nay! You cannot ask that, you...
you...”
”Loathsome lout?” Alinor offered with a grin.
”Yea, you loathsome lout!” Tyra said to Adam, who remained grim-faced, waiting for the king's answer.
”Good strategy,” Tykir congratulated Adam, clapping him on the shoulder.
”Methinks this calls for a saga,” Bolthor announced. ”How about, 'How the Lady Warrior Got Caught in Her Own Snare'?”
”I give you this word of caution, my lady warrior,” Ras.h.i.+d said. ”She who rides the tiger should be careful how she dismounts.”
”That is the most nonsensical proverb you have spouted thus far,” Tyra told Ras.h.i.+d.
”It means that you have been tempting me as if I were a castle cat, when in fact I am a tiger,” Adam explained to her. He added a tigerish growl and a wink to make his point.
The growl and the wink touched Tyra in the most sensual way... well, actually, in the most sensual place.
”You are clearly some sort of disgusting male creature,” Tyra informed Adam, clicking her tongue with disgust.
”Faults are thick where love is thin,” Ras.h.i.+d opined.
”Shut your teeth, Ras.h.i.+d,” Adam said cheerily.
”I still want to know what finger-pleasuring is,” Breanne said.
”Me, too. Me, too,” chimed in Ingrith and Drifa.
”Enough!” the king roared.
When there was silence in the room, he addressed Adam. ”Your request is granted. She who kidnapped you shall return you to your home.”