Page 7 of Loki

The boy blinked. "No, Miss Astrid would never do that! She's the most marvellous healer. Even better than Mistress Kun." He sounded proud. "She did not ask for the flowers. I...I picked them myself, as a gift. The purple thimbles are her favourite, and they've just started to bloom."

Loki nodded. The boy was clearly smitten with the jarl's daughter. "My mother called them foxgloves."

The boy bobbed his head. "That's what Miss Astrid calls them, too."

"Do you think she'll carry a bunch of them to her wedding, when she's handfasted to Orm?" Loki asked.

The boy's face paled. "She's to marry him?"

Loki shrugged. "It's the only way Erik would keep a man like that loyal, to bind him into his family. It's what I would do." If he was a leader of men who wanted to ensure their loyalty, which of course he wasn't.

The boy's brows furrowed. "But she can't marry Orm. She won't. He's...he's cruel. She's had to heal so many of the serving girls when Orm comes to visit. She knows what he's like, better than anyone. She'll never agree to it."

"What would Jarl Erik do to his daughter if she refused to marry the man her father had chosen for her? A man he needed to make an alliance with?" Loki mused, plucking one of the flowers from the jug and crushing it in his fist.

The boy shivered. "Nothing good. We all have to obey Jarl Erik."

"Maybe you should save the girl. Run away with her, so she doesn't have to marry Orm."

The boy shook his head violently. "Oh, no, Miss Astrid would never do that! She loves her father. Why, only yesterday, she saved him from a strange snake...so brave, picking it up in her bare hands! I could never, not even for Jarl Erik."

"Maybe you should carry her off, then. Slip something into her wine so she falls asleep, and carry her off somewhere far away, where her father will never find her," Loki suggested, plucking another flower before crushing it.

"Oh, no, that would never work. She's the witch's apprentice, and Mistress Kun would find her. She's a powerful enchantress, you see. She can travel anywhere, instantly."

Loki selected a third flower and crushed it, too. "Well, if you want to save Miss Astrid, you'll have to think of something, or her father will give her to Orm."

The boy eyed him thoughtfully. "It would have to be after the battle. We'd have to act swiftly, before Jarl Erik or Mistress Kun could do anything to stop us. Maybe..."

Loki just nodded. There was more than one way for Erik to lose his family, and if some lovesick boy carried his daughter off, that was one less death he'd need to worry about. Call him soft, but he didn't have the stomach for killing women. Oh, he might be able to knock a shieldmaiden unconscious if she attacked him and it was her life or his, but he'd still regret the blow. But if needs must...

"You might want to give her jusquiasmus, not foxglove, though, if you want her to sleep," Loki said.

"Jusquiasmus?" The boy looked blank.

What else had Loki's mother called it? "Henbane. Stinking nightshade?"

The boy's eyes widened. "The stuff the berserkers drink before battle?"

Loki nodded. "That's the one. If you bring me some, I can show you how to prepare it so it just puts her to sleep, instead of turning her into a berserker." And then he'd have two poisons he could use to help him get out of here and back to Odin.

SIX

Jorunn went through all the artefacts twice, just to make sure, but the result was the same. On the days she'd photographed stuff that wasn't in the storage boxes, Nik had been assigned to cataloguing things.

Sometimes Sibyl or Karl had helped out on those days, too, so there'd been three sets of handwriting, but never one of the other guys. Lara helped out sometimes with the transects, but she preferred to leave the actually archaeology stuff to the diggers, as she called them.

So far, Jorunn had managed to avoid cataloguing duty – swapping with Sibyl as often as she could, because Sibyl actually liked that stuff – but maybe tomorrow she should take her turn. Because she couldn't just go to Karl with her suspicions. He'd worked with Nik way longer than he'd worked with her, and probably trusted him, too.

She'd have to actually witness him stealing stuff, and even that might not be enough. She'd watched her thieving mother blatantly deny everything even when she knew she'd stuffed Jorunn's bag or pockets or jumper with stuff she wanted to steal.

God. Having to work alongside Nik all day tomorrow. Kill her now.

"Hey, Lara, can I take a bottle of aquavit to share with Sibyl tonight? That other one I put in my pack's empty," Jorunn said.

"As long as you have a drink for me, and a toast to my health, grab one whenever you like. Karl's on some sort of health kick, refusing to drink until he finds his ice mummy, and the other men are drinking that horrible German herbal stuff." She shuddered. "At least you Aussie girls have good taste."

Jorunn tipped an imaginary hat to Lara. "We will drink your health with every cup, I promise you. We'd all starve without your wonderful cooking, and the whole expedition would fall apart without you to organise us every day!"

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