Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

"Talk to me, then," said Erik from the corner.

"I thought… a private word."

Erik sighed. "I haven't any advice to give you, Benito."

Erik plainly wasn't going to make this easy. "Well, I wasn't really looking for advice. I just heard about a girl called Svanhild-"

Erik crossed the room in a single lunge, picking Benito up by the shirt front. With one hand. "I have enough of this from Manfred. You leave her name out of it. You leave her out of it! Do you hear me?" He put Benito down with a thump against the wall, glaring at him.

"She's looking for you," said Benito, in a kind of undignified squeak. He had the satisfaction of seeing Erik totally rocked on his heels.

"What? Where?" demanded the Icelander. The look of hope in Erik's eyes took away the satisfaction.

Benito took a careful step away. "Erik… it's bad news. She's here on Corfu. But she's outside the walls."

Erik sat down. His blue-gray eyes bored into Benito.

But it was Manfred who spoke. "Where do you get this from, Benito? This no subject for your practical jokes." His voice, bantering earlier, was now deadly serious.

Benito held up his hands. "No joke, I swear, I got it straight from Maria and Umberto, who specifically told me to tell you. It's true. Someone called Svanhild from Vinland, who was on the Atlantic convoy, stopped here so that she could wait and see Erik. Specifically. Maria said she had two brothers with her and a number of other Vinlanders. Only they stayed in a villa outside town. Nobody warned them about the siege."

Erik's eyes were still boring into him. It was at times like this that Benito understood exactly why the Holy Roman Emperors relied on Clann Harald for their closest bodyguards. Erik Hakkonsen practically shrieked: Deadly!

"Maria, you know…" Benito half-babbled. "Er… Katerina's bridesmaid-at the wedding!-was on the ship with her. Svanhild, that is. She asked me-Maria, that is-to tell Erik, I swear it. And her husband Umberto confirmed it."

Erik got up, took a deep breath, and gave himself a little shake. "Benito, I owe you an apology."

Benito shrugged and grinned. And paid back the scores of an entire week of training. "It's nothing. No one expects logic of a man in love."

Then he lost his smile. "I'm sorry that I had to tell you she's out there. You can see fires up and down the length of the Island."

Erik swallowed. "Has she got her bodyguard, her brothers and their hearthmen, still with her?"

Benito shrugged again. "I don't know. I've told you literally all I've heard. Maria said you should come and talk to her about it."

The rangy Icelander put a hand on Benito's shoulder. "Will you take me to her? Please? Now?"

Benito nodded; he'd expected as much. Probably Maria had, too, if Svanhild had been as irrational about this as Erik was.

But if the girl had a pile of brothers and whatnot with her that were like Erik-well, maybe she, and they, were all right. In fact, maybe he was going to feel a little sorry for the invaders.

Manfred turned to Francesca. "I think we'd better tag along as well."

Francesca stood up. "Yes, I'd like to see Maria anyway. I never really got to know her." She raised an eyebrow at Benito. "This is 'your' Maria, isn't it? The one you got into trouble over?"

Benito reddened. "I've got over that now. Umberto Verrier is a very decent man. Gives her what I didn't."

Francesca smiled. "If you can come to terms with that, you've grown up more than most men ever do. Come, Manfred. Erik wants to go."

Manfred took her arm. "Do we need horses?"

Benito shook his head. Horses were one of the aspects of being "promoted" to the Case Vecchie that he really could do without. Living in Venice he'd not been on the back of one until he was fifteen. And then he hadn't stayed there for very long. "It's close. Five minutes' walk."

Francesca looked down at her little pearl-fringed Venetian leather shoes and grimaced. "Oh, well. I have ruined the purse that matched them already. Let's go."

Erik was already halfway down the hall, forgetting that it was Benito who would have to show them where to go. And as they walked, he was constantly having to check his long strides for the rest of them to catch up.

Benito didn't like this at all. It was fairly likely the Icelander's sweetheart had fallen prey to King Emeric of Hungary's forces. Erik was like a loose cannon with a lit wick on a crowded deck. When-if-he found out she'd been hurt or was dead, someone was going to pay in blood.

Probably Captain-General Nico Tomaselli.

Maria decided that skirting Svanhild's reason for considering her true love ineligible was probably wise. Erik didn't seem to care anyway. All he wanted to do was to get out there and find out if she was all right.

"So you say her brothers and their party stayed with her?"

Maria nodded. "Two of them went on, saying they were going to return to Vinland. But the other fifteen or so stayed with her. Her two brothers included."

Erik shook his head, angrily. "I don't understand why she didn't stay here. The podesta has lots of space up at the Castel a mar. He told me that it is quite usual for important or high-ranking travelers to be their guests."

Maria made a face. "Um. She had a clash with the captain-general… and instead of sending them to see the podesta, he gave them directions to Count Dentico's villa. They had been trying to find place for a party of sixteen in the town. But Kerkira's tavernas, um, weren't good enough. Apparently."

"The Thordarsons are very wealthy. A powerful family in western trade," said Erik. "Svanhild would expect everything of the best. In a taverna, she would have to share a bed with other women, strangers."

Maria blinked. Well, of course, she almost said aloud. After all, what else? You put up in a taverna, you were going to have to share the accommodations with other travelers. That went without saying. Didn't it?

Erik seemed to read her thoughts; but, a bit to her surprise, he didn't react angrily or defensively. He simply shook his head, smiling a little.

"You're not telling me all of what she said, I'm sure, because you think I'd be offended at the thought she found me unsuitable until she learned about Manfred. But I understand her, Maria, and you don't. Well enough, anyway. Vinland's not really that different from Iceland. I lived there myself, you know, for three years."

Maria had forgotten that about him, if she'd ever known. But it explained Erik's skill with that peculiar Vinlander weapon called a tomahawk, and with the skraeling style of wrestling.

"She's from a very wealthy family," Erik explained softly, "but has no experience with towns and cities. Sent by her family, I'm sure, to find a proper husband. A girl who's known few strange men of any kind-and those, men whose customs she understands. Vinlanders or skraelings, who, at least in some ways, aren't all that different."

Manfred was staring at Erik oddly. "You understood all this about her? Then why…" He winced.

Erik shook his head. "Clann Harald is true to its oath to the imperial family. Always. I could explain nothing to her, even though it was obvious to me that-"

He waved his hand, curtly. "Ah, never mind. The point here, Maria, is that she's probably never shared a room, much less a bed, with any female she didn't know. She's never been away from home before, and I'm sure in all of the places she's stayed so far, they fell over themselves to give her a room to herself. Here, so crowded, not all the money even the Thordarsons have could buy a private room in a taverna."

He sighed. "And her brothers, naturally-you have no idea how protective such can be, in matters like this-would not have dreamed of asking her to do something so outlandish."