The Viking's Captive by Sandra Hill Page B

a trumpet blared just then, announcing the start of the evening meal—another of Ingrith’s bright ideas for enhancing their dinner, which the Viking men snickered about behind her back but put up with nonetheless. No one wanted to offend sweet Ingrith. The house carls and kitchen thralls began filing into the hall, carrying platters and platters of food for the three hundred or more Viking men and their ladies who had gathered there, sitting at the long trestle tables, sipping their mead and beer.
    By thunder! It was only a welcome-home dinner … and a subdued one at that because of their king’s illness. Still, there were more than eight types of fish, including baked sea trout stuffed with onions and mushrooms, an enormous whole cod that had been roasted over hot coals, creamed and salt herring, pickled eels, salmon in dill sauce, a cod and leek soup, several dozen baked brown trout, and
hákarl,
or cured shark. Most Norsemen would be satisfied with plain fish, dried or raw, smeared with butter.
    Aside from the fish, there were an entire reindeer pit-roasted in hot coals; pork and leek stew slow-simmered with carrots, onions, celery, and barley; a stringy goat pottage; a large goose stuffed with hard-boiled eggs; and that ever popular
hrútspungur,
or ram’s testicles pickled in whey and pressed into a cake. Bowls of butter accompanied huge platters of flatbread, along with pots of horseradish and mustard. An array of hard and soft cheeses included the Norse favorite skyr, a creamy curd cheese often flavored with fruit.
    And vegetables! Blessed Freyja! There were cabbages, field beans, peas, carrots, and turnips. For the sweet palate, the traditional haverbread or oatcakes, plus stewed prunes, cinnamon apples, hazelnut tarts, and fresh berries with cream.
    It was a veritable feast fit for a king, but the everyday fare at Stoneheim. If Ingrith didn’t wed soon, she was going to turn them all into milksops. Or fat Vikings.
    With a long sigh, Tyra put her face in her hands and wondered how she was going to survive this night … and the next day. And food was the least of her troubles, she realized as Adam came up and sat down beside her.
    He smelled of clean soap and warm male. He smelled good enough to eat.

CHAPTER SIX

    H
e was pure knightly temptation …
    “Why are you so sad?” Adam asked.
    Without being invited, he had sat down in the chair next to her, which must have become empty when Rafn went to the garderobe. Not that being invited ever seemed necessary for this rogue.
    “I’m not sad, really. Just somber, thinking about everything to be done on the morrow. Worrying about my father.”
    He nodded his understanding. Looking about the massive hall, he must be noticing that despite the hum of conversation and laughter, the same air of sobriety had settled in like an impending storm cloud. Tension lay in the background of all that her people said and did. They were all waiting for the next day and the outcome of the medical procedure on their king.
    “So, what do you think of Stoneheim?” she asked
    He arched his brows and grinned. “Not what I expected.”
    She arched her brows back at him.
    He thought for a bit while a serving maid poured him a wooden goblet of mead. He took a deep draught before leaning back in his chair and answering her. “After forcefeeding all of us that disgusting
gammelost
aboard ship, I thought there would be more of the same here.”
    “I left Stoneheim in a hurry. There was no time to gather tasty provisions from Ingrith’s larder,” Tyra told him before she realized how defensive she sounded. “You thought we ate stinksome cheese all the time at home?”
    He nodded … and grinned some more.
    She punched him in the arm, hard, and he flinched. Well, not hard enough for him to flinch. He was teasing her again.
    “Actually, I thought you in particular dined on sour crabapples and prickly pears and tough-as-hide boar meat. They go better with your disposition than”—he